Storiesonline.net ------- Any Soldier by Lubrican Copyright© 2010 by Lubrican ------- Description: Julia's 2nd grade class wrote letters to "Any Soldier" in Iraq and a soldier wrote back. The kids adopted him and his private letters to Julia got her going. Then he stopped writing, and Julia had to find out why. Her journey to find him has its ups and downs, its ins and outs. Pun intended. Codes: MF cons rom preg slow ------- ------- Foreword. This story was the idea of my proofreader, Michelle. During a conversation we were having one time I mentioned that while I was in the Gulf war I got "Any Soldier" mail, and loved it. It meant a lot to me and I spent hours answering some of it. She said that I should do a story about that, and about how the relationship between the person who sent such mail, and the soldier who got it, might go on after the war. I thought it was a good idea and put it in my projects folder. So this fictional story is based on something that is actually true - I really did get and enjoy a lot of Any Soldier Mail. I also answered most of it. More bits of the truth are scattered through this story. Having been in the Army for many, many years, I am familiar with the kind of red tape that flourishes there. Both the mail and red tape have a lot to do with this story. Other things in the story are purely fictional. This is an important distinction, because some of the bits of "truth" in this story didn't necessarily happen to me. But they have happened to others, and that is very, very important to remember. And that gets us to the part where I have to warn you that the prologue begins with some rough scenes. What happens to the protagonist is unhappy, violent and may cause some readers to want to stop reading. I ask you not to stop. Read the prologue anyway, even if you begin to feel a little squeamish. Thousands of young men have experienced it in person, and more young women than you might think. They expose themselves to this on your behalf. Whether you agree that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are legitimate or not, these people are willing to put themselves in harm's way so that you aren't. This story is dedicated to those young men and women who serve so selflessly. And thanks to Michelle for a great idea. Even if she didn't think she was being serious when she suggested it. Bob ------- Prologue Around 2300 hours, the night of 17 Nov 08, Achmed Tergazzi, a twelve-year-old boy, located and removed a thin sheet of scrap sheet metal that was covering a hole about a foot and a half deep and perhaps a foot in diameter. He then turned to the piece of plywood he had dragged to the site with a rope and rolled the old artillery shell off of it, levering it into the hole, point up. He performed the other operations the men had taught him how to do, put the metal sheet back in place, covered it with the dry dirt that had been on top of it, and retraced his steps, brushing the marks he'd made out of the dirt. ------- At 2317 hours, 17 Nov 08, Achmed pushed open the sagging door of an abandoned house and called out softly. He was answered and a candle was lit. "I did as you told me to," he said to a shadowy adult form. "Where is my sister? I must take her home now." "Tell me exactly what you did," said the man. Achmed described his actions. The man pulled out a cell phone and pushed buttons. He grunted. "You did well. All appears to be working." "My sister," said Achmed, his voice shaking. "You promised I could take her home if I did what you said." "Yes," said the man. He pulled a pistol from the shadows and shot Achmed three times in the chest. ------- At 0830 hours, 18 Nov 08, Irwanna Husseini left her house hoping to get to the market safely, buy some food, and return to her home. She saw the two bodies before she had gone a block. One was of a boy, perhaps twelve, and the other a girl, a little older. Both were obviously dead, so she passed around them. If there was a policeman at the market she would tell him of the bodies. She could not know they were Achmed and his sister, or that the young woman had been repeatedly raped before she was strangled. No one would ever know, except the men who did it. There would be no autopsy. The parents of the children would never know what had happened to them, because the people who eventually came and took the bodies away didn't try to identify them. They were just added to the group of unidentified victims of the American war and would, within seventy-two hours, be buried in a common grave with all the others. ------- At precisely 1303 hours, 18 Nov 08, the man who had shot Achmed watched, his finger poised above the cell phone in his hand, as the convoy approached the place where the IED was buried. None of the true believers had been risked to place this one. The helicopters with their night vision devices and spitting chin cannon made that too dangerous. But the kidnapping of the girl, and the false promises to the boy had gotten the IED in place, and that was all that mattered. Now the glory of Allah would be served as the infidels were punished for soiling Iraq with their foreign presence. He let two vehicles pass by before he punched the last button in the number that would set the artillery shell off. The Stryker next to the IED, when it went off, weighed 36,240 pounds, fully loaded with three crew and nine troops aboard, plus all the associated gear and ammunition. It was armored and could withstand the vast majority of munitions that could be expected to be flung against it. But not an artillery shell only six feet away. Still, the crew compartment remained intact as it was blown free of the shredded vehicle, landing some fourteen feet from where it had been only seconds before. The smoke, dust and debris from the explosion blanketed an area twenty-five feet further out than that, but one piece of red hot metal ejected from the cloud was all the bomber needed to see to know that Allah had punished the invaders. He turned and left quickly, knowing that the retribution of the Great Satan could be swift and thorough. The attempt to recover survivors and bodies was hampered by .50 Cal M2 and Mark 19 40mm grenade ammunition cooking off in the fire that was attempting to consume everything it could reach. A second Stryker bulldozed the crew compartment out of the fire and then went on, to make sure it wasn't exposed to the heat too long itself. Helicopters appeared overhead, circling like eagles, looking for prey. An armored HMMV ambulance screamed up to the smoking crew compartment as soldiers attempted to pry the access ports open. Once access was gained, bodies were lifted out. Some went on the ground, abandoned almost immediately. Others went on the side of the ambulance away from the smoking crater, where medics hovered, trying to save lives. Eventually six bodies were stacked into two ambulances, which left at high speed, on rocking springs. Other bodies, now contained in black body bags, left the scene for another destination. The remainder of the convoy formed up, drove around the debris, and continued on the mission. ------- Chapter 1 First Lieutenant Andrea Foreman received the gurney from the two medics who rushed it into the ER. She pulled it into a curtained alcove where her team was waiting to assess the casualty. They had done this many times before, and the practiced ease with which clothing was cut off and equipment utilized made her both proud and sad at the same time. Her team was one of the best, which made her proud. That they had to have these skills at all was what made her profoundly sad. "Staff Sergeant Robert C. Hickory, type A positive," said Specialist Anderson, removing the dog tags around the soldier's neck. He would also go through the pockets of the bloody uniform and secure any personal property found. "I've got a compound fracture with a bleeder!" called out PFC Williams. "We may have arterial bleeding here!" Lieutenant Foreman went to the left leg. Pain management wasn't an issue, since Sergeant Hickory was currently unconscious. "Help me set," she said. PFC Williams took the ankle and she gripped the shin just below where the two jagged bones were protruding from the skin. "One - two - three," she said, and the leg was straightened. Bright red blood welled out of the open wound, which she pulled apart with gloved fingers. "I've got bone fragments all over the place, and the popliteal artery is damaged," she said. "Pressure points and surgery, right now! Move it, people, or we're going to lose this one." ------- Major Donald Ferguson stepped back from the leg containing the artery he had just repaired. "He's all yours, Tanya," he said. "What's next?" Sergeant Tanya Phillips pulled the gurney out of the OR and into the recovery room. The patient had shown no signs of recovering consciousness, but his vitals were good, now that two pints of blood had been put back into his body. He had a long way to go. The emergencies had been dealt with. Now he would have to be cleaned up and the other cuts and bruises on his body tended to. They couldn't cast the leg yet, but they could splint it with an inflatable collar and keep it rigid. The orthopedic doc had ordered tension on the lower leg, just to keep the bones apart until the surgeons back in Landstuhl could assess whether the leg could be saved or would have to come off above the break. At 1703 hours, exactly four hours after the IED changed SSG Hickory's life forever, the plane carrying him back to the huge Air Force hospital in Germany lifted off the tarmac of the runway in Iraq. It would be the last time SSG Hickory ever visited the country. Not that he was aware of his early return to "the world." His brain, traumatized by sound, motion and impact, would not repair itself enough to let him regain consciousness for another four days. But in some ways that was a blessing, because during those four days many painful things were done to his body in the interests of keeping most of it alive. He was stitched up in six locations. He was operated on in two. It was determined that the tissue damage resulting from the compound fracture was too devastating to heal properly and the lower leg was amputated three inches below the knee. Pressure inside his cranium was released by drilling holes in his skull. But he was breathing on his own, and his blood pressure was within acceptable limits. He was put in ICU and people around him, none of whom he'd ever met before, hoped for the best. ------- SSG Hickory had been gone from his unit almost a week when he first opened his eyes. He knew something was wrong immediately, but he also knew, somehow, that there was nothing he could do about it at this instant. He began assessing his environment, in an attempt to gain information. It was just a habit, and he did it without thinking. At that exact moment, thousands of miles away, Sergeant First Class Ralph Butler was supervising the packing of the belongings of his former third squad leader. They were being sent back to Riley, where the unit's home base was. Not that anything would happen to them there. Hickory wasn't dead, but he had no wife. The only person listed in his next of kin records was a sister named Claudia, who lived in Arkansas. Butler watched closely as the two privates packed the boxes. It had been known to happen that valuable items went missing in situations like this, and he wasn't having any of that crap on his watch. As the bottom of the footlocker came into view Butler saw stacks of envelopes and tablet paper with drawings on them ... crayon drawings. "What the hell is that?" he asked. Private Willie Nelson, who wished his parents were dead within ten minutes of arriving at his basic training company, grabbed a fistful of paper and held it up to the Platoon Sergeant. The other private picked up an envelope and looked at the front. "Any Soldier mail," he said. "He's got a ton of it." Butler sorted through a dozen envelopes. Most were blue, pink or yellow. The ones on top were addressed to him, not "Any Soldier". The return address was from someone named Julia Miller, in Boonville, Missouri. There were at least ten of them in the group that Nelson had handed him. He lifted them to his nose. Perfumed. "Hickory ever talk about a girlfriend?" he asked. Nelson looked up and shrugged. He tried to shrug at every question. He'd gotten more attention in his eight months in the Army than he could have used in his entire life. It might have helped if he could play the guitar and sing. He could do neither, however. Private John Rhyes shook his head. "Never, Sarge." "Hmph." Butler handed the bundle of letters back to Nelson. "Put them all in there. Mark them as personal correspondence on the receipt." "Yes, sir," said Nelson, and then winced. "How many fucking times do I got to tell you I ain't no fucking officer, Nelson?" growled Butler. "I work for my fucking living!" "Sorry Sarge," said Nelson. "Well get that sealed up and take it and your sorry ass over to the APO. And get a fucking receipt!" ------- Julia Miller, aged twenty-two, and in her first year as a real, live, certified second grade teacher at David Barton Elementary School, in Boonville, MO., clutched the letter to her breast as she hurried down the hallway to her room. She wasn't worried that Alicia, her aide, wouldn't be able to control the class. She was just in a hurry to share with them the latest development in their project. Julia had become aware of the "Any Soldier" mail concept on the internet. She was unaware it had been official during the Gulf War, but had become unmanageable during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The services had tried to stop it, but the quantity of mail addressed to "Any Soldier" had continued to swell. The US postal service didn't give a damn. All that mail required stamps, and that was good. They forwarded it to the APO, or Army Post Office, which had to do something with it. If they just pitched it and some asshole representative of the media found out about it and reported on it, it could be very bad press. So they kept shoving it on down to units, and letting them worry about it. This mail was a perfect example of the old saying: "One man's trash is another man's treasure." Most units loved it and passed it out to the troops as a diversion from the crushing routine of cleaning weapons and hoping you didn't die. Julia simply read about it on a 'Support Our Troops' kind of website and thought it would be a good citizenship project for her class to do. So she had all the kids write a letter, put them all in a big manila envelope, and sent it off to "Any Soldier, Iraq." Hearing nothing for a month and a half, she about given up on the idea when a letter came, addressed to her class with a return address that was completely unintelligible in terms of making any sense, except for the name: Staff Sergeant Robert Calhoun Hickory. That first letter had shocked her to her core. That was because that first letter ... the first six pages of neat handwriting from a man she'd never met, and who was ten thousand miles away, and who was writing to seven year old children ... made her panties wet. He was warm, and funny, and thankful to the children. He told stories about children their age in a far away country, children who smiled and begged for candy and gum. He described beautiful buildings and a night sky that had so many stars in it that they lit up the ground when there was no moon. He told them tidbits of what his life was like, such as what he ate, and how often he got to take a shower. It wasn't that it was all sweetness and light. He did mention that it was a dangerous place to be, and that war was never a good thing to be involved in. But he used those comments to encourage them to find ways of resolving conflict without escalating it to violence. He told them they were lucky to be safe, and to listen to those who would keep them that way, including Miss Miller. There had been a separate page in that letter, addressed only to her. He had thanked her personally, and told her he'd never forget her or the children, because their letters had reminded him of why he was there, and why it was worth it. His letter had made it clear he never expected to hear from her or the children again, but encouraged them to write to more servicemen. The class would have none of it, of course. Staff Sergeant Hickory might have started out as "any soldier," but now he was "their" soldier. They had questions for their soldier. Julia winced at some of those questions. Several children wanted to know if he had killed anybody, and what that was like. She didn't feel like that was an appropriate question for someone so young to ask ... maybe for anyone to ask, outside the mental health arena. They wanted to know if he had children, and she was afraid that was too personal a thing to ask a man who might be separated from said children. In the end, she decided that she wasn't the one to censor their letters. She just apologized to him in a personal note and told him he didn't have to answer anything that made him uncomfortable. He wrote back. He didn't sidestep anything, but the way he answered was in general terms, toned down to be less shocking, such as when he explained that there is death in all wars, which is why wars should be the very last resort to solving problems. He said he hoped he never had to hurt anyone. He said he had twenty-two children, and then listed the names of each child in the class. By the end of his second letter to the class, he owned them, though she knew that wasn't what he was trying to do. And by the end of his personal letter to her, he owned her too, though she knew that was silliness of the most shocking caliber, and that she needed to get a grip on herself. Julia had had some fun in college, but hadn't wanted to risk having a teaching career by falling in love, so she ensured that she didn't date anybody long enough to get to know him well enough to fall in love. Now that she felt like a real teacher, part of her wanted to feel like a real woman too. To her, that meant having a man interested in her. So she wrote him a letter just from herself. And he answered. And she wrote more, and he answered those too. Not that SSG Hickory was overt in his comments to her. He just flirted on paper, saying things like he wished he was in second grade again, or asking if he was naughty, would she keep him after school. It was little harmless things like that, but she felt them deep in her belly. The class' third set of letters to him were all about Christmas wishes and holiday plans. The class voted and said their wish concerning him was for a photograph. Julia couldn't send him pictures of the children without their parents' consent, which she hadn't had time to organize yet. Instead, she sent him a photograph of herself. The only one she had handy was her graduation photo from college. His third letter to them contained the photograph. It was of a smiling man, wearing sunglasses and Army clothes and a helmet. His rifle was slung in such a way that it could be seen, but was behind him, emphasizing it was a necessary tool, rather than something he wished to carry. There were vehicles in the background, and other soldiers. On the back of the picture were the words "Merry Christmas to all my kids" and it was sighed "Sergeant Bob." Folded into his private letter to her was another photograph. He was sitting on his bunk in pants and a tight brown T shirt, holding up the children's letters in one hand, and hers in another. He was kissing her letters. On the back was written "Thanks for keeping me going." It was signed "Bob." In subsequent letters the children wanted to know when he'd be leaving Iraq, and would he come see them, and would he go back. They'd heard sometimes soldiers had to go back. He said he didn't know for sure when he'd leave there, or get back to America, and that he'd be happy to visit them if he could. In his private letter to her, he wrote: "I know I have no right to say this, but I'd love to meet you. I feel like I know you. I know that's not possible just through a few letters, but you've brightened so many of my days. And the kids! Wow, how lucky you are to have them every day. I can only hope I do get to see them some day though, to tell the truth, they'll be in third grade by the time I get back. They're talking about extending us again. I know you probably have a boyfriend, and have just been being nice to a poor lonely soldier, but I dream of actually getting to see you and talk to you. I hope that doesn't scare you. I'm harmless, really. If it bothers you just tell me to shut the fuck up (the words "the fuck" had been crossed out numerous times, but she could still detect them faintly) and I'll try to behave myself." There had been more, bits and pieces about his day, and the fact that they were going on another mission later that day. He ended by saying he needed to get ready for that and get this letter in the mail. He said he hoped he'd get to write again soon. That was the last letter she got from him. It was dated the eighteenth of November. Her first clue that there might be a problem was when the packet of letters she sent him the next week was returned to her with the cryptic stamp across the address "RETURN TO SENDER. ADDRESSEE NO LONGER PRESENT IN UNIT". She didn't know what that meant, because it didn't make any sense. She waited. Weeks passed and she worried. She had no idea where to go to ask questions. There was no Army post near Boonville. The closest was Fort Leonard Wood, which was hours away. She had a "eureka" moment when she was stopped in traffic and glanced to her right, where there was an Armed Forces Recruiting office. She pulled in and went in to talk to a man in dark green pants and a light green shirt who she disliked instantly because his eyes stripped her bare before he said a word. He continued to lust after her as she explained what she wanted. He said "Soldiers are deployed and redeployed regularly. It's hard telling where he is." She worked up the courage to ask if he might have been injured. "Even if I could find out," he said, "which I can't, I wouldn't be authorized to talk to you about it." "So you can't do anything for me at all," she said, unhappy. "Maybe I could do some poking around and see what I can find out," he said. "Can you come back tonight?" "When?" "Oh, around eight or nine. It will be quiet by then. I can stay late ... on my own time ... and maybe do some ... poking around." His eyes raked her body. She looked at his left hand automatically ... not because she was interested. She saw the glint of gold on his ring finger. "Wouldn't you rather be home with your wife?" she asked. "Not necessarily," he said. She was horrified that he expected her to be attracted to a man like him. "Sure," she said, smiling. "See you tonight." She left. She didn't intend to go back. He could wait all night. She hoped he did. She wasn't ever going back to that place. A fantasy wafted through her mind as she drove home. She could think of one way she'd return to the horny, cheating bastard. If she could find his wife, and the wife was watching when she went back, so she could see what her cheating bastard husband was trying to do ... Yes, she might go back then. ------- "Hey there." He looked over at the doorway of the enclosure. He knew he was in a hospital, but that was about it. The woman standing there was plump and short. "I'm Renee." She was obviously waiting for him to tell her his name, but he was pretty sure she should already know that. "Hi," he said. He saw the relief in her eyes and she stepped closer. "What do you remember?" He had to think about that for a while. He knew he was a soldier. He knew his name was Bob. Then he remembered he was the squad leader of third squad and memories started tumbling around in his head. "Am I still in Iraq?" "No," she said. "You were injured. I'll be right back." "Wait!" She either didn't hear him, or ignored him, and disappeared. She was back, shortly, with an officer. Bob knew he was an officer, even though he was wearing blue/green scrubs. He could just tell. The man was a doctor, Colonel something-or-other. Bob learned a little about what had happened to him while the doctor learned everything he needed to know about the state of mind of one Staff Sergeant Robert Hickory. "I'm going to have you flown back to Walter Reed," he said. "I'm very happy with your condition." ------- Three days later Bob sat up in a bed in a ward at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He wasn't happy with his condition. He could still feel his foot, and it bothered the shit out of him. He had headaches that came and went for no reason. Part of his life was a complete mystery. He could remember mounting the Stryker, but everything after that, until he woke up in Landstuhl was a mystery. He ignored his aches and pains, for the most part, but the missing foot couldn't be ignored. It wouldn't have been so bad except that nobody seemed to give a shit about him. Once he wasn't unconscious any more, he was warehoused in a ward with twenty-three other injured warriors. For the most part the men were on their own. They went to chow at the prescribed time. Some of them went outside for walks. But they weren't allowed to leave the campus. It seemed like the only people who came to check on them now were the people making sure they hadn't gone AWOL. They'd provided Bob with a wheel chair, but he wasn't used to it yet. He could get to chow, but the chair was configured to prop the short leg up, so the stump stuck out and was in jeopardy of running into just about everything. It hurt like a motherfucker when anything hit it, and several times he was left in tears. He felt helpless, and useless and abandoned. Nobody from his unit had been to see him. He didn't even know what his fucking doctor's name was, or when his next appointment was, or even what his next appointment might be for. A Red Cross volunteer came around, pushing a cart full of books. He chose three paperbacks. He was about twenty pages from completing the third one when his name was called from the entrance to the ward. "Yo!" he called out, raising his hand. ------- Chapter 2 By March, 2009, Julia had enough experience with the Army to have learned that it wasn't a system that was user friendly. Her conviction that Bob was either injured or dead was like acid in her belly, though, and she couldn't let it rest until she knew which it was. She was rock solid sure that he hadn't just decided to stop writing. She had tried everything she could think of, from contacting the public affairs office at Fort Leonard Wood, to going to the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter. In every case, once it was determined she had no official ties to the soldier in question, a stone wall was erected. In complete frustration she had finally approached Ron Zelch, who had been teaching fourth grade at David Barton Elementary School for two decades. On the wall behind his desk were pictures of groups of men in uniform. She'd never paid any attention to them before, but now he was a potential source of advice. "What can I do for you?" asked the man who was old enough to be her elderly father. "Are you in any of those pictures?" she asked. "Most of them," he said. "I need your help." When she explained it to him, he nodded. "They have all these rules," he said. "But they aren't sure just what the rules actually say, and the safest thing is to say they can't help you." "But all I want to do is find out if he's alive or dead," she moaned. "Surely that can't hurt anything." "I agree," he said. "But it's easy to say 'no' so they do." "How can I make it harder for them to say 'no?'" she asked. He grinned. "That's easy. Just lie." ------- The lie they came up with was quite simple. They decided that Staff Sergeant Hickory had left some very valuable property in the custody of one Julia Miller, who was no longer able to maintain it and needed to return it to the soldier. "Fine," said Julia. "But who will care?" "Don't know yet," he said. "But we have nothing to lose, right?" "I guess not," she said. "First, though, I have to ask you questions," he said. "Lots of questions." "All right," said Julia. ------- Lieutenant Colonel David Adkins stood, arms folded, as a sergeant strapped the prosthetic limb onto Bob's stump. "The first fitting is almost always uncomfortable," said Adkins. "So expect that." "Yes, sir," said Bob automatically. "Don't let go of the rails, no matter how stable you feel," the officer went on. "Initially all we want to do is see how you compensate while standing. You haven't stood in quite a while." Bob didn't tell them he'd been hopping back and forth to the latrine for weeks, tired of sitting in the chair all the time. He still took the chair outside, but inside the ward he almost never used it any more. He'd fallen a few times, but was good, now, at avoiding hitting anything with his stump. He still felt the phantom foot, but it wasn't so bad any more. He no longer had the urge to stand on it, for example. The sergeant stood up. "Good to go," he said. "All right," said LTC Adkins. "Grip the rails and try standing." Bob made it look like he was straining. It would have been easy to pop up and try resting weight, finally, on his left leg. He didn't, though, because he was finally getting some attention and didn't want things to go in reverse. The sooner he could get a leg, the sooner he could get the fuck away from this place. They were talking about keeping him here six more months! He let weight down on the prosthetic. There was pain, but only of an annoying kind. He couldn't help lifting his right foot off the mat, just to see what that felt like. He leaned and his hip hit the left rail of the parallel bars he was standing between. "Careful," warned the office. "It's not bad," said Bob. "I'm surprised, in fact." "One thing the Army has is good prosthetics," said Adkins. "I could get around on this," said Bob, taking a couple of hesitant, and very small steps. "Oh this is nothing," said Adkins. "Your final leg will feel like you've always had it. You'll be able to run on it, maybe even play soccer if you don't overdo it. "I don't think there's a lot of soccer in my future," said Bob. "We'll see," said the colonel, leaning down to examine the interface between flesh and prosthetic. ------- "This is Sergeant First Class Valentine. How can I help you?" "Is this casualty assistance?" asked Ron. "I need to talk to somebody in casualty assistance." "I'm the Casualty Assistance NCOIC," said Valentine. "How can I help you?" "It's not me. It's my niece. She's gone and got herself mixed up with a grunt and everything is fucked up, like usual when the Army's involved." Valentine rolled his eyes. "What's the problem, sir?" he asked. "First off, I want you to know who you're talking to," said Ron, his voice rough. "I'm Lance Corporal Ronald Zelch, service number 5663271, Bravo Company, Second of the first Infantry Regiment, United States Marine Corps. I ain't retired, because after two tours in Nam I got the fuck out. But I served my goddammed country, and I got two purple hearts to prove it." "Thank you for your service, Lance Corporal," said Valentine, sitting up straight. Valentine was a history buff when it came to Viet Nam, and the unit this man had referenced had been through the thick of things. "How can I help you?" "My niece got mixed up with a soldier, and he give her something to take care of for him until he got back from Iraq. Somethin' valuable. And now she ain't heard from him for months, and she's all worked up about it and she don't want no more to do with this thing he give her. She wants to give it back, but nobody will tell her where he is so she can do that." Valentine rolled his eyes again. "What is this valuable thing, Lance Corporal?" "It's a kid." Valentine blinked. Then he smiled. This wasn't his problem at all. "You've got the wrong office, Corporal," he said. "You need to get in touch with the family assistance office for the unit he's in." "Well, there's a problem with that," said Ron. "What's that?" asked Valentine. "When they was going together, she didn't want her parents to know about it, because she knew they'd raise a fuss, what with her being underaged and all that. And then, when she found out she was pregnant, he was about to deploy, so they got married on the sly and Uncle Sam don't know about it." "Oh shit," groaned Valentine. Then "Sorry about that." "I've heard worse," said Ron, grinning. "Anyway, she got some letters from him, but now they're being returned as no longer assigned. I kind of figured that meant he got wounded. At least I hope he only got wounded, because all hell is going to break loose when she turns up pregnant with no husband to produce because the Army won't tell her where he is." "You mean the baby hasn't even been born yet?" asked Valentine. Nobody was more appealing to the media than a pregnant, grieving widow. If he could hand these people off to somebody else, and it blew up then, at least he wouldn't be involved. "What do you have on this soldier?" asked Valentine. "Maybe I can do something for you." ------- Colonel William Bell leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtfully at SSG Hickory. "Why are you so anxious to leave Walter Reed?" he asked. "I think the question would be why is anybody anxious to stay?" replied Bob. Bell ignored the comment. "According to what you've told me you have no family. You have nowhere to go, and no job lined up. Your enlistment goes for two more years, though I'm sure that will be waived by the medical board." "Which will take another six to eight months, while I rot in that ward over there," said Bob. "I understand you have only another month of rehab before they give you your final leg," said Bell. "At that point you'll be able to go on pass." "For an evening, or maybe a weekend if I'm lucky," said Bob. "Where would you go for a weekend?" asked the psychiatrist. "Hell, I don't know," said Bob. "To a bar? I could sure go for a bottle of Scotch about now." "A whole bottle?" "Having a whole bottle doesn't mean you have to drink the whole bottle at once," said Bob. "Alcohol abuse is not the answer to your problems, Sergeant Hickory." "I wasn't aware I had any problems," said Bob. "Except being locked up here." "You have anxiety issues," said the doctor, "as well as anger issues. You appear to be either living in a fantasy world or willing to become homeless just to leave this hospital." "Why can't I go back to my unit?" asked Bob. "Your unit is still deployed." "All right then, I can go to the rear detachment." "Which is fully staffed," said the doctor. "What would you do there?" "Hell, I don't know. Go to the gym," said Bob, exasperated. "We have gyms here," said the shrink. "Stay with friends," said Bob. "And their names are... ?" "You know I can't remember everything," moaned Bob. "That doesn't mean I'm helpless." The psychiatrist looked at his watch. He had three more patients to see and then he could go meet Major Jenkins for handball. Major Jenkins was forty-one, in an unhappy marriage, and in need of some appreciation. Bell had been working on giving her the kind of attention he thought would make her flower, and he wanted to get to that. He wanted to pick that flower when she bloomed. "What I know, Sergeant, is that you're not ready to leave Walter Reed quite yet," said Bell. ------- "Hell, Corporal, you haven't lost your edge, I'll tell you that," said SFC Valentine. "Even without the social you gave me enough to find him easily. He was put on an evac to Walter Reed in late November. He's still there in the med hold unit." "You got a mailing address?" asked Ron. Valentine spilled it off. "I don't suppose by any chance you got the name of the CO," said Ron. "Can't help you there," said Valentine. "It doesn't list commanders names. I got a phone number for the CQ (Charge of Quarters) desk, though." "Let me have that," said Ron. He wrote it down. "Thanks, Sarge. For a grunt you've been an all right guy." "I try to help out my jarhead friends whenever I can," said Valentine expansively. "Good luck to your niece. She's probably gonna need it. He should have told his unit he got married." "I know, I know. Youth is stupid," said Ron. "Hooah!" said Valentine. "Semper Fi," said Ron, and hung up. He turned to Julia, who was almost dancing with impatience. "I got you an address," he said, grinning widely. ------- Bob gave a shot at joining a pickup game of basketball. Under normal circumstances he'd have been laughed off the court, but these weren't normal circumstances. Four of the players only had one arm. One was playing with two stumps where his wrists should have been. There was another man who had a prosthesis affixed to his thigh. Like Bob, he had the running adaptor attached. The running adaptor looked a little like a big J, fashioned from what acted like spring steel, but was actually a carbon fiber based material that was stronger than steel. The flex of the lower part of the J created spring and, with a little practice, a man could run on the adapter, using the spring to compensate for what the missing foot, ankle and calf could no longer do. It worked well for running. Basketball, however, called for the use of slightly different muscle groups, or at least muscle groups used in different ways. To put it plainly, it was very awkward, and both men fell down a lot. Nobody laughed. Instead, they were approached by someone - not infrequently a one-armed man - and helped back up. Eventually the game devolved into a game of H.O.R.S.E. ------- Julia looked at the letter she'd just written. She hadn't told the children yet that she'd found their soldier. She'd held them off for months by telling them he was on a secret mission, and couldn't break cover to write back to them. It was what she'd come up with initially, and now she was stuck with it. If she told them he was in America, they'd want to write to him and expect him to write back. And that was the problem. He was in America ... and hadn't written. Her brain told her that meant he wasn't really interested. Her heart couldn't buy that. But she couldn't think of any reason why he wouldn't write, unless he was horribly injured and couldn't write. Ron hadn't wanted to push things with the man he'd talked to on the phone. He said they'd been lucky enough as it was, and that he wanted to stay under the radar of official notice. ------- Things would have gone a lot calmer had Julia just called WRAMC, which has an office called SFAC, or the Soldier Family Assistance Center. They would have told her Bob was recuperating and doing well, though that's about as much detail as they'd have given someone who wasn't a family member. It's important to understand that the term "family member" doesn't mean, to the U.S. Army, what it means to most of us. To most of us Uncle Frank is a family member. But the Army can't accept something so simple. Instead, the Army has a form, called a DD Form 93, Emergency Data Card, on which the service member lists "family members." The form is used to identify those family members the service member wants notified if anything happens. The form is supposed to be updated yearly at a minimum, and prior to every deployment. On SSG Robert C. Hickory's DD Form 93, only one name was listed: Claudia Strangline, identified as his next of kin and sister. There was a phone number and address on the card, written in pencil, which is the only writing tool authorized to be used for that purpose on DD Form 93. Pencil is also used to record the date of the last update. To this particular DD Form 93 was attached by paper clip a DD Form 106-A, telephone contact log showing the times and dates attempts had been made to notify Claudia Strangline of her brother's status. None of the attempts had been successful, and the last one was noted "number no longer in service." So, if Julia would have called, and identified herself as herself, someone in the SFAC would have checked SSG Hickory's DD Form 93 and determined that Julia could be told little or nothing. But she didn't call. She wasn't aware the SFAC existed. She wasn't aware that DD Form 93 existed. She was just concerned about the man she unconsciously thought of as her boyfriend, even though she'd never met him in person. So, during Spring Break, instead of working in her classroom, Julia got in her car and drove sixteen hours straight to Washington D.C. Using a Google Map, she found Walter Reed Army Medical Center, an immense facility comprised of dozens of buildings, all of which have names that tell the observer nothing whatsoever about what goes on inside them. For lack of a better plan, Julia simply went into the first building she could find a parking space next to and, having mastered Ron Zelch's technique, said "I'm looking for my husband. Can you help me?" ------- Bob walked now with only a slight limp. With pants on that covered the prosthesis, the casual observer might think he'd sprained an ankle, and was favoring it a bit. He approached room 395B in building 1, Administrative Services Support Division. There was a small placard that protruded from the wall above the door. On both sides if the plastic card were the words "Records Management." He checked the note in his hand. This was the room he'd been told to report to. The name "Benson" was also on the note. It had taken him almost an hour to find the office, which was, perhaps, three hundred yards from where he started out. Entering the room he reported to a PFC dressed in desert camouflage, seated behind a steel and plastic desk. For perhaps the thousandth time, he wondered why the Army wasted combat uniforms by putting them on soldiers who were not in combat. He asked for "Benson." The PFC routed him to a desk where a civilian motioned for him to have a seat beside someone else while she continued helping the person actually sitting at her desk. He dozed while two other soldiers were processed. He could tell it was a records update by watching what they did. He'd done it dozens of times himself. Finally it was his turn. He told the woman his name and she extracted a file from a basket to the right of her desk. She opened the file and pulled out a card that was off yellow and about 3"X6" in size. She laid it in front of Hickory. "We need you to update your DD 93. When we tried to contact your sister to notify her of your change in status, we couldn't reach her. We need her current phone number. And her address, if that's changed too." Bob stared at the card. He picked it up and peered at his own handwriting. He looked up at Mrs. Benson. "I have a sister?" ------- Julia just happened to park outside the DCI, or Department of Clinical Investigation, which is a research facility at WRAMC and does not actually treat patients. Oddly, everyone at WRAMC who does not treat patients, is vitally concerned with the welfare of patients and the happiness and satisfaction of family members. Those who do treat patients are so overworked they don't care about much of anything any more. So the first people Julia interacted with at WRAMC were eager to help. They were not used to using the process that the treatment side of the house used, involving HIPAA, consent forms, protocols, and dozens of other rules and obstacles to progress. Not in terms of letting a poor distraught wife find her husband, anyway. They had their own rules for research and dissemination of information. But that's another story. Mrs. Edith Johnson, who had worked in the office of procurement for DCI for twenty-one years, and who was returning to that office from the cafeteria with a latte, was the first person Julia ran into, and Edith Johnson, who felt like she was a very small cog in a very large gear of a huge machine that, as far as she could tell existed solely to feed tax dollars into a black hole every day, was finally given a chance to do something for someone. In twenty-one years Edith had learned a lot about how things worked at WRAMC. She knew about the Soldier Family Assistance Center, and proceeded to try to explain to Julia how to get there. The emotions that had fueled Julia's frantic search for, and travel to Bob, drained away and suddenly Julia aware that she was impersonating a soldier's wife and was actually at "the Army" she had battled with for so long. And the Army had always won before. She was filled with despair. Edith saw the despair in the young woman's eyes. She saw the tears filling those eyes. She sensed the breakdown that was about to occur. This poor girl didn't know where her husband was, or what his status was. The Army had failed her! Edith resolved not to fail this woman. "Come with me dear," she said soothingly. "We'll find your husband. I'll get you to him. I promise you." Despair was pushed aside by hope. Could this possibly work? She just knew if she could only get to Bob that he'd explain everything. All she wanted was a few minutes with him, to make sure he was all right, and to tell him that the children were worried about him. Or would be if they knew he was injured. Her brain hurt, and she followed the woman into an office. Edith shortcut the system by logging in to a database used for accounting and cost analysis. Each soldier who was quartered at WRAMC represented a list of expenditures. There was lodging, meals, clothing and associated support supplies. Every item used in treatment was carefully accounted for with an id number that went to a patient. More money was spent tracking sponges used in surgery than the sponges themselves cost. Edith reverted to her professional self, which knew what to do. "What's your husband's social?" she asked. Julia blinked. She was caught on the very first question! Tears welled up in her eyes as despair rushed back in. "I don't know," she sobbed. Edith saw the breakdown creeping closer. Her heart went out to this young woman. "It's all right. The stress is too much. Of course you can't remember everything, " she said. "Don't worry, we'll find him. What's his name?" "Robert Calhoun Hickory!" gasped Julia, overjoyed to be able to answer a question correctly. Edith clicked keys. Her hand darted to her mouse, moved it, clicked twice, moved it again, clicked once, and then she typed some more. "Got him!" she said, elated. She reached for a pad and wrote down a nine digit number. "Here's his social, so you don't have to try to remember it, dear." She beamed as Julia took the post it note and stared at it. "What do I do now?" asked Julia, suddenly weary. She'd driven sixteen hours straight through, and was at the end of her energy reserves. Edith looked around. Nobody was watching. Nobody was ever watching. "I'll take you where you need to go," she whispered. ------- Chapter 3 "I don't know... do you have a sister?" Mrs. Benson asked Bob. "I don't remember," he said. His hand went automatically to his head, where one of the holes drilled in his skull had left a small, eraser sized bald patch. Benson flipped to another page. "Ahhh," she said. "You're a traumatic brain injury patient. That explains it. You're just having memory problems." "I guess so. You'd think I'd remember my own sister, though." "Well that's your handwriting, right?" she asked pointing at Claudia's name. "Yes," he said. "And you wrote the date right there, right?" She pointed to the date of the last update, which was just before his deployment to Iraq. "Yup," he said. "Then you have a sister," she said, smiling. "But her phone number is no longer in service, according to the call log. Maybe she moved after you deployed. Or at least changed her phone number." "Obviously," he said. "Well, we can't do anything now. Do you have any correspondence from your sister? Something that might have her address on it?" "If I had correspondence from my sister, I'd know I had a sister," he pointed out. "Oh. Yes." She flushed with embarrassment. "Maybe your unit has something. Why don't you contact them, and if they have something then you can come back and we'll get this squared away." "Sure," he said. "And you should probably check with the Soldier Family Assistance Center. She may have tried to contact you through them. But if what she told them didn't match what was on the DD 93 they wouldn't have told her anything. They're sticklers about privacy these days, especially when it comes to wounded warriors." "Okay," said Bob. "Next!" she called, looking past him. ------- "I'm taking you to the Soldier Family Assistance Center," said Edith. "They'll get you with your man." "I don't know how to thank you," sighed Julia. "This has been so difficult!" "You poor dear," cooed Edith. "Don't worry. Everything will be all right now." She stopped the car and Julia got out. "Just go in those doors there and tell them his name and social," said Edith. As she drove away, Edith Johnson felt proud for the first time in a long time. ------- The members of the SFAC were handpicked for their cheery, unflappable composure. This is because family members often seem like they are punishment from hell, foisted on people just trying to do their jobs. Nothing is ever good enough, fast enough or cheap enough to satisfy a grieving family member. All family members believe their soldier should be at the front of every line. So when a tired, bedraggled and confused Julia walked into the SFAC and was approached by only the second smiling person Julia had seen all day, she smiled tiredly back. "You're looking for a family member?" asked Specialist Four Denise Throckmorton. "Yes," sighed Julia, and she held out the post it note with Bob's name and social written on it. ------- Having nothing better to do, and it being a nice day, Bob walked over to Randolph Hall, where the Soldier Family Assistance Center was located. Along the way he tried to think about his sister. Initially all he got was a big blank in his mind. His parents had died early in his Army career, and he remembered the pain of that. But thinking "sister" didn't produce anything at all. He sat on a bench in the sunshine. It was chilly, but not bad enough to worry about. The woman had mentioned letters. He closed his eyes and thought about mail call in Iraq. An image popped into his mind ... a pretty young woman in cap and gown. She was smiling ... happy. He felt a tug from his heart, and made assumptions based on that yearning to see this woman. He got up and went on toward Randolph Hall. ------- "Do you have your travel orders?" asked SPC Throckmorton. "Travel orders?" Julia was confused. "You should have been sent travel orders," said Throckmorton, calmly. "I just came," said Julia, helplessly. "Can I see your ID?" asked Throckmorton gently. Julia looked behind her. "It's in my purse ... in my car." She pointed back towards where she had parked, which was now half a mile away. "It's over there somewhere." "I need some kind of ID so I can straighten all this out," said SPC Throckmorton. "But I promise you I can straighten this all out." Julia didn't think she had the strength to go back and find the car and get her purse. And in any case, she didn't have an ID that would match what the Army had on file for his sister. And since that was what was being required, it looked like her quest was doomed to failure after all. She felt suddenly weak in the knees and swayed. "I just found out he was hurt." She sagged helplessly. "I don't know how badly. I just wanted to see him." Tears welled up in her eyes. "Can I sit down somewhere? I'm so tired. I drove all the way from Missouri." It was obvious to SPC Throckmorton that the woman was on her last legs, and might collapse at any moment. She took the woman's elbow and led her to a line of upholstered chairs, letting her sink into one. Throckmorton reached for the supply of tissues she kept in one pocket and offered one to Julia. "I know this is hard for you," she said, soothingly. "I'll try to cut through the red tape. Can you give me a minute?" Julia nodded, dabbing at her eyes. She thought about leaving while the woman was gone. She didn't want to leave. She had come so far, and all she wanted was just a glimpse of him, to know he was all right ... to be able to tell him they were thinking about him. She glanced at the door. A tall young man was coming in, limping slightly. He looked familiar. Adrenaline surged through her body, instantly giving her energy. She shot to her feet. "BOB?" she screamed. Specialist Throckmorton whipped around and saw her customer standing, mouth agape, frozen, staring at a wounded warrior coming through the doors. The soldier looked at the woman. "Sis?" he said, his eyes widening. ------- The "reunion" was touching in a way that made Denise Throckmorton want to burst into happy tears. The distraught young woman ran and flung herself at the tall soldier who, Denise noticed with a semi-professional eye, compensated nicely on what she recognized as a prosthetic leg of some kind. He swayed, but his arms wrapped around the distraught girl and picked her up off the floor, where his instincts could control her additional weight better. "Oh Bob!" she wailed, hugging him fiercely. "I was so worried! I was afraid you were dead!" SPC Throckmorton snapped back onto professional mode, wiping her eyes with her knuckles. "Dead" was an unhappy word in this place, and nobody wanted it bandied about. The reunion was touching, but it needed to be moved to a more private setting. She approached the couple. "This is your sister?" she said, by way of intruding. She smiled. "Yeah," said Bob, looking a little shell shocked. "You got your ID on you?" asked Throckmorton. "Sure," said Bob, and he extracted his billfold. Julia was still wrapped around him, holding him and sobbing, her legs fastened firmly around his upper thighs. He let go of her and opened his wallet to extract his military ID card. Throckmorton glanced at the post it note and saw that everything matched. "What's her name?" she asked, knowing it was useless to try to question the crying girl. "Claudia," said Bob, remembering the name on his DD Form 93. "Claudia Strangline. She moved since I filled out my 93 card and they couldn't find her. I was coming here to see if you'd heard from her or not." "I'm happy to say we've heard from her," said Denise, smiling widely. "Let me get her squared away. She's dead on her feet." She winced at her own used of the taboo word. "No problem," said Bob, and put his arms back around his sister. She turned her tear streaked face up to him. "Are you all right?" she asked in a high pitched voice. "I am now," he said, squeezing her. "I have a traumatic brain injury, and I forgot I had a sister. But I'm getting better." Julia's mind whirled. Any port in a storm, they say, and she seized the floatation device that was offered. "Yes! I'm your sister!" "They tried to notify you when I got injured, but I guess you moved or something, because they couldn't find you at the address on my emergency notification card." Again she went with the first thing that came to her, based on the last time she had moved. "I graduated and got a job teaching," she said, breathlessly, staring up into his eyes. She couldn't believe he was right there, in her arms! "That explains it," he said. "Here she comes." Specialist Throckmorton approached, smiling. "I pulled some strings. She's so tired we need to get her somewhere she can rest and you two can catch up. We'll do the paperwork later. I've gotten her a room at one of the Fisher houses. You can stay there with her while she's here. I've already notified your chain of command." "That's wonderful," said Bob, eager to get out of the barracks, even if only for a few days. And his sister had a car. Didn't she? "Do you have a car?" he asked. She waved a hand. "Over there somewhere," she said. She wanted to reinforce the idea that she was on her last legs. "I had to park it way over there somewhere." "We'll find it," he said, squeezing her. Throckmorton handed him a set of orders. "Promise me you'll get back with me in a day or two," she said. "I need to get her situation squared away so all the tees are crossed." "No problem," said Bob. "Can we go now?" "Have a good time. I got her in for five days to start with. We can extend it later when we get the paperwork done." "Hoo-rah," said Bob. "Let's go, Claudia." He pushed her away from him, but held her shoulders. "Is that what I call you? Claudia? Or do I have a nickname for you?" "Call me anything you want," she sighed, and leaned back in to hug him again. ------- Julia was still in a daze as Bob keyed open the door in the guest house that provided emergency lodging for family members through donations. It was similar to a hotel, and the room was nice, though compact. There was a queen sized bed, a small kitchenette with a table that would seat three. A couch formed a partial barrier between the sleeping area and a small space with a TV in it. "You want to take a nap while I go get some clothes to bring over here?" asked Bob. Julia, desperately tired now, nodded. "Just promise me you'll come back," she said. "I promise," he said. "I'm not going anywhere now that you're here." ------- She was sleeping on the bed when he got back. He put his things down quietly and stared at her. She looked familiar, and yet he could remember nothing of their interaction in years past. She looked a year or two younger than he was, at most. She must have been in college when their parents died. The way she was lying caused her auburn hair to half cover her face. The swell of her breast caught his attention. It seemed like so long since he'd seen someone ... a female ... not associated with the military. He realized he was looking at his sister's breast and looked away, feeling mildly guilty. He sat in a chair, but there was nothing to do except look at her. If he turned on the TV it would wake her up. He closed his eyes and, after a little while, his head jerked and he woke up. If he was going to nap, it might as well be in a comfortable place. He got up and lay down beside his sister. Almost immediately she murmured and rolled toward him. Her arm reached for him and she snuggled up to his chest. It was simply natural for him to enfold her in his own embrace. She felt warm. Her hair smelled wonderful. She wiggled, trying to get even closer to him. When he felt a tingle in his groin, and his penis began stiffening, he felt guilty for a few seconds, and then decided he'd already suffered enough. He just enjoyed feeling good in the arms of a woman. Even if it was his sister. ------- Julia woke and caught his scent immediately, even before she felt his arm draped over her. Her hand moved, and she felt his body under it. Her other arm was asleep, so numb that she knew if she tried to move it nothing would happen. Air rasped between his lips, which were just above her head. She lifted her good arm and brushed her hair back, tilting her head up. His face was slack in sleep. The urge that suddenly surged through her body was both delightful and shocking. She'd only felt that urge one other time, back in high school, while she danced in the arms of Steven Biggs. She had acceded to that feeling that night, and lost her virginity in the process. She had never regretted it, even when it became obvious that she and Steve had no future together and they broke up. In that moment it had been something she desperately wanted to do. It had made her feel like she had taken a concrete step towards being an adult. She contemplated the emotions rushing through her. She could feel her nipples stiffening. They itched and she wanted to squeeze them, but they were pressed against the man who was making her feel this way, and she didn't want to move ... to disturb this physical bond. "What now?" she wondered. In truth, if this was all that ever happened she could be happy. She had found him. He was all right. Of course there was the minor misunderstanding that he thought she was his sister, but that could be dealt with. It would be funny ... something they'd joke about in the future. Right? She leaned her nose against his chest and inhaled deeply. She had never smelled a man like this. She decided there was no aftershave, no cologne, no artificial odor that could hold a candle to the natural scene of a male. At least this male. The feelings coursed through her, and now there was an itch in another place on her body. Her hips thrust against him instinctively. He moved, and his breathing changed. She looked up to find his eyes open, staring into hers. She could get lost in those eyes. "Hi," he said. "Hi," she sighed, suddenly feeling like she knew what a slut must feel like. She would do anything for this man. She shuddered with the force of the feeling. "You okay?" he asked, feeling her tremble. "Not hardly," she said, realizing how foolish she was letting herself be. Now instinct caused her to roll away from him ... to put distance between this man who had so much power over her, and her traitorous body. "What can I do?" he asked. "You've done way too much already," she said, rolling out from under his arm. "I don't understand," he said. "Never mind. I'm acting silly. It's just so good to know you're all right." "Well, mostly," he said. "What's wrong?" she asked. She quelled the urge to climb back onto the bed with him. "I don't know how to tell you," he said. "I mean it may shock you. You may not be ready for it." "I'm looking right at you, Bob," she said, confused. He was lying on his left side, and he rolled onto his back and raised his left leg. He reached to the knee and pulled his pant leg up, exposing the black anodized metal that was now his ankle. The tennis shoe on the artificial foot looked like something on display on the foot of a mannequin. "Oh Bob!" she gasped, her hand coming to her mouth. "It's not so bad," he said urgently. "I can get around fine." "I just didn't ... I mean when I saw you I thought..." She stared, horribly fascinated with the thing attached to his body. "You thought I was still a whole man," he said sadly. She looked at his face and saw pain there. "Don't be silly," she said. "You are a whole man." "No I'm not," he said. "I'm a freak now." "Stop that!" she said, and stamped one foot. "And there is so much I can't remember," he said. "I couldn't even remember you until I remembered the picture you sent me." The world tilted on its axis and Julia felt like she might fall to one side. "The one of me in my cap and gown?" she asked, breathlessly. "That's the one," he said sadly. "I would never have known you existed if they hadn't called me in to tell me they couldn't find you." Now the prominent emotion Julia felt was shame ... shame that she was usurping the role of a woman he ought to know, ought to be able to talk to and remember things together with. This was fine for her, at least for the moment, but it was wrong to take something from this man. "There are other things you've forgotten too," she said sadly. "Like what?" "Let's go get something to eat. I'll tell you about it then." ------- Bob's triple chili cheeseburger and fries sat in front of him, slowly losing their heat. He'd taken only one bite of the burger before she told him who she really was, and about the children. He sat, jaw agape as she talked about their letters to each other, and the things he'd said in his letters to the kids. As she went on, things stirred inside him. They weren't memories, exactly. It was more like déjà vu, where it all seemed so familiar somehow, but not something he'd actually gone through. And it was confusing images or bits of information that he knew were in the wrong order to make sense the way they should. "And I was worried about you, because I knew you wouldn't just stop writing, and a teacher who is a Viet Nam vet helped me find out where you were." She flushed. "I think I went a little crazy when I jumped in the car to come find you. I can't believe how things worked out, but I can't go on pretending to be your sister. She's out there somewhere. Maybe you can find her." She sat back. Her own sandwich was untouched. She reached for it, but more from nervousness and the need to do something, than hunger. She nibbled at one corner. "So the picture I remember is you," he said, sounding confused. "Yes," she said. She couldn't think of anything else to say, even though his comment made very little sense. "When I think of that picture, I feel ... funny," he said. "Funny?" He remembered their embrace, in bed. She had lain down to take a nap and found a man in bed with her when she woke up. Yes, he had thought she was his sister at the time, but brothers and sisters don't lie like that. What must she have thought? She had pulled away ... had said he'd done too much. No wonder! "I'm sorry!" he gasped. "What on Earth are you sorry for?" she asked genuinely startled. "I got in bed with you," he whispered. "Yes?" She was confused. So what? Nothing had happened. If anything not enough had happened! She realized suddenly that that was a naughty way of thinking of things ... somehow. They didn't really know each other, and she knew she should be shocked that she'd loved waking up in the arms of a strange man. It was so hard, because she was so attracted to him. She couldn't seem to think logically or normally. "I shouldn't have," he said. Julia felt like, somehow, she had hurt him. She didn't want that. She never wanted to make this man hurt in any way. He had lost a leg on her behalf, on behalf of the children. If anything she owed him something. "Why not?" she asked, trying to sound calm about it. "You took a nap. I took a nap. We just happened to take one together. You didn't know I was an imposter then." "But you're not an imposter," he said. He looked anguished. "I mean I felt something for you. I felt like I knew you. I just couldn't remember the things that made me feel the way I did." He blinked. "It's confusing, because I felt..." He stopped and looked away. He looked almost guilty. "What?" she probed. "I felt things I shouldn't feel for my sister," he said. Julia felt a jolt of excitement. "But I'm not your sister." "But I thought you were!" There was something like euphoria bubbling up inside her now. "But I'm not!" "Don't you get it?" he moaned. "When I thought you were my sister I got excited." He flushed pink. "I got stimulated." He was obviously having difficulty going on. "You got horny?" she whispered. "Oh man," he moaned, and dropped his face into his hands. "I'm so fucked up." Euphoria turned to alarm as she realized he was in emotional pain. She didn't think he should be, but he obviously was. "Listen to me," she said urgently. "You remembered my picture. You made a tiny little mistake about who you thought I was, but you remembered me, Bob, not your sister. What you were feeling was for me, Bob, not your sister. And then I went and pretended to be your sister, just so I could get to see you and talk to you. This is really my fault, Bob. You shouldn't feel bad. You didn't do anything wrong." He looked up. His eyes were damp. "I thought you said all we did was exchange some letters." "That's right." "Then I shouldn't get horny for you either." She leaned back in the booth and stared at his anguished face. "Don't you think I should be the one to decide about that?" she asked. ------- Chapter 4 When they got to the door to her apartment, he stopped. "I can go stay in the barracks," he said. "But I came all this way just to see you, and talk to you," she complained. "And I'm going to be in so much trouble when they find out I hoodwinked you. They might even put me in jail!" "You could just leave," he said. "Just drive away. They have no idea who you really are. How would they find you?" "And leave you here to take all the heat?" "Hey, I'm a TBI patient. My brains are scrambled. I could do anything at any time. Nobody knows what I might do next. They won't even let me leave because they think I might go off the deep end." "Really? You can't leave?" "I have to have a sponsor," he explained, "and I don't have one." "Who can be your sponsor?" "Well usually it's a family member," he said. "Except I don't have any." He blinked. "I mean I didn't think I had any. I do have a sister ... somewhere. But they can't find her, so that doesn't help. And besides, she might not be willing to take me." "I can't believe any sister would turn her back on her injured brother," Julia said, incensed. "Well, she sure hasn't tried to contact me," he said. "How do you know?" she asked. "I tried to contact you for months, with no success at all!" He looked thoughtful. "Well, I guess that's true, " he said. "You know ... they still think I'm your sister," she said. He looked at her. "Thanks, but it would never work." "Why not?" she asked. "Remember all that paperwork I'm supposed to complete back at the Family Assistance Center? It's not going to happen. We don't have anything to prove you're my sister." "Oh," she said. "You have a point." "Besides," he sighed. "You don't want me living with you." She tilted her head and surveyed him. "You haven't been listening very well." Then she opened the door and pulled him inside. ------- "Julia," he complained. "I can't stay here tonight. You're a nice girl." "And you're a nice boy," she said. "I'm not a boy," he argued. "And I'm not a girl any more." "We don't even know each other," he pointed out. "We can get to know each other better tonight," she said. "Look, Julia, you haven't been listening very well either. If I stay here tonight I'm going to want to do things." "That doesn't mean we have to do things," she said. "But I'm going to want to!" he said, getting loud. "Obviously, you don't want to," she said firmly. "Because if you did want to, you'd be trying to get in here, so you could seduce me and carve another notch on your gun." "I don't have a gun," he said, almost petulantly. "And if I did it wouldn't have any notches on it." "None?" She was shocked. "Well, not very deep ones, anyway," he said, looking away. "What does that mean?" she asked. "Are you a virgin?" "No," he said defensively. "I just haven't done it very much, okay? Are you happy now? I'm not a macho stud with a bunch of girls to my credit." "How do you know?" she asked sweetly. "What do you mean how do I know?" he barked. "Well, you told me yourself, you can't remember things. You couldn't remember your sister, and she's a pretty important woman in your life. And you couldn't remember me, and you admitted you get horny for me. So who else can't you remember? I bet you have a girlfriend somewhere." "I do not have a girlfriend," he insisted. "If I had a girlfriend I'd remember her." "Like you remember your sister and me," she said, smiling impishly. "What do you want?" he yelled. "I want you to be Bob," she said softly. "I want you to be yourself, the man who wrote me letters, the man who my kids adopted. That's all I ever wanted." "But what if I want more?" he whined. "Do you?" she asked, and then held her breath. She was going crazy inside again. He opened his mouth to speak and then stopped. He took two deep breaths. "I don't think I'm supposed to," he finally said. She wanted to scream "Why not?" but the fact was he might actually have a girlfriend out there somewhere. She couldn't believe women would let a man like this run free. "All right then," she said. "All we'll do tonight is get to know each other better. Tomorrow I'll slip on out of here and you can tell them whatever you want." "Okay," he said. He sounded tired. "I need a shower," she said. "Can you go find us something to munch on tonight? And some drinks maybe? My keys are on the table. Can you drive a car with that leg?" "Go take your shower," he said. "You have an automatic. I'll be fine." ------- Once she was naked, in the shower, with water cascading against her skin, she knew she'd have to masturbate. She felt like she was about to explode already. She soaped her body quickly. There was complimentary shampoo. It wasn't the kind she used, but that didn't matter. Not for just one time. When she was clean she leaned against the wall of the shower and slid a hand between her legs. She jerked as her fingers found her clit and pressed it. "Ohhhh shit," she groaned. For some reason, the only time she cursed was when she was doing this. She ended up squatting, two fingers digging deep and the web of her thumb torturing her clit as she shook in the grip of an orgasm. She wanted to sit down and just let the water play on her body, but she knew if she did that she wouldn't want to get up. She turned the water off and stepped out of the shower. While she was toweling off, she glanced in the mirror, looking critically at her straggly reddish brown hair, the wet ends of which were currently plastered to her upper breasts. Those breasts were normally contained in a bra, but not because they needed support. They were firm and high on her chest, with nipples that she always thought looked like had been rouged. Her stomach was still flat, and she always examined it because that flat stomach was what kept her to her running schedule. She turned this way and that, trying to figure out if her hips were getting bigger. Looking over her shoulder she decided her butt was still OK. She used a fresh towel on her hair, getting it as dry as she could. It was while she was doing that that she realized she'd forgotten her blow dryer. No matter. She could comb it out. It always dried straight anyway, even if she tried to put curl in it. She turned to get dressed and froze. She hadn't brought anything into the bathroom with her. In fact, she hadn't even brought her suitcase into the motel room. There had been too many other things to think about. She looked at the clothes she'd taken off and wrinkled her nose. She'd been wearing them for almost twenty four hours. No way was she putting them back on. She went to the door and opened it a crack. "Bob?" she called. "Are you back?" There was no answer. She opened the door more and peered out. No Bob. She thought about just waiting, but it was chilly. She decided to get the bedspread and wrap that around her until Bob came back. Then she could have him get her suitcase. She stepped out of the bathroom, tossing the towel in her hand onto the floor. She walked to the bed. The door opened and Bob walked in, a plastic bag suspended from one hand and her suitcase hanging from the other. They stood, both like deer in the headlights. She stared at his face, noticing his eyes take in her nudity. He was very thorough in examining her body, and part of her mind noticed that as his eyes ranged over her naked skin, a pink flush began suffusing his cheeks and then his forehead, until he looked sunburned. "Oh man," he sighed. Julia sensed, in those few seconds, that she had power over this man. That seemed incredible, because he was a soldier, a warrior. He'd been in battle and fired guns and been blown up. It was impossible for a strong man like that to be helpless under the gaze of a mere woman. But he was. She could feel it. "Close the door," she said, astonished that her voice was so steady. She felt like she was going to explode any second. Her suitcase hit the floor with a thud and the hand that had been holding it groped for the door and pushed it shut. "Put my suitcase on the bed, please?" she suggested. "I won't have anything to wear until I can get into it." "Oh man," he moaned. "Yes, you're a man and I'm a woman," she said, putting her patient teacher voice into her throat. "There are some differences. You've seen them before." "Not like this," he sighed. "I'll just turn around now." He turned around. "My suitcase?" she reminded him. "Oh, yeah." He bent and she noticed it looked different somehow. She wondered if the prosthesis made it difficult to bend over. He was trying to put the suitcase on the bed without looking. "Bob?" "Yes?" "I don't mind if you see me." "You don't?" "No." "Why not?" "Because if you didn't have a girlfriend, I'd wish I was your girlfriend." He turned sideways. "I don't have a girlfriend." "We don't know that," she said. "Then why are you standing there naked?" he asked. His eyes darted her way and then went back to the wall. "Because you're holding my suitcase and I can't get any clothes out of it," she said. "Oh. Yeah." "Put my suitcase on the bed, Bob." "Sure," he said. Finally he faced her and put the suitcase on the bed. He didn't look up, though. "Would you open it and hand me something to wear?" she asked. This control she had just discovered was intoxicating. "Um ... all right," he said. He opened the suitcase. "Panties and bras are in the corner on your left," she said. He reached and then stopped. "I can't touch ... I mean I can't do..." He swallowed. "I can't," he finally said. "All right then, pick a T shirt on the right and hand it to me." He took the one off the top, which was red, and stuck it out across the bed to her. She crawled onto the bed, feeling like some kind of vamp and took it from him. Standing on her knees she pulled it on. "Now some jeans. They're under the T shirts." He lifted the shirts and pulled a pair of jeans out. He looked up at her as he handed them to her. His eyes dropped to her pubic hair and widened. She didn't say anything. Instead she rolled to her back and stuck her legs up in the air. His eyes were glued to her as she reached to start the jeans onto her feet and then pulled them up her legs. When they got to her hips she arched her back and wiggled, almost laughing as his wide eyes watched her pubis slowly disappear behind the denim. She zipped and buttoned, and then rolled off the bed to stand in front of him ... close. "That wasn't so hard ... was it?" He swallowed, but his face suddenly seemed to firm. "I can die a happy man now," he said firmly. She did laugh then, with the pure joy of a woman who knows she is honestly appreciated by a man she likes. She was horny as hell, but it felt good and she welcomed it. She poked him in the stomach with one finger. "I'd prefer you didn't die just yet," she said. He looked into her eyes. "What do you want from me?" he asked softly. She understood him to be remembering the last time he'd asked that question, and that it was being asked very differently this time. "I don't know," she said. "Actually, that's not true. I know what I wish for, but it's not fair to ask it." He was quiet for a while, but didn't move away from her. "You said I flirted with you in my letters," he said. "I thought it was flirting," she said. "You wanted it to be flirting?" he asked. She felt her cheeks heating up. "Yes ... that's fair to say." "And did you flirt with me?" "I never could seem to learn how to flirt," she said. He barked a harsh, short laugh. "What was that stuff just a few minutes ago?" "I don't know," she said, feeling weak in the stomach. "I've never done anything like that before." "Were you waiting for me ... like that ... on purpose?" "No. I was going to get the bedspread and wrap up in it, but you came in first. And then something happened and I saw that ... I don't know ... it felt like I had some kind of power over you, and it was exciting. I almost felt like a different person. I've never acted like that before. I don't know what came over me." He was quiet again for a few seconds. Still they stood only inches apart. "If I wanted to kiss you, would you let me?" he asked. She licked her lips. "Yes." She expected him to kiss her then, almost closed her eyes in anticipation, in fact, but he didn't kiss her. "If I asked you to take your shirt back off ... would you?" Her eyes jerked away and then back. His seemed so huge, all of a sudden ... those eyes she could fall into. "I think I would," she whispered. She watched his face, and saw clearly several different things flitter across it. She saw something that might be desire, but it was displaced with worry and then anger, followed almost immediately by a helpless look that made her heart ache. "What's wrong?" she asked. Her hand came up and rested on his side. "I have scars," he said, barely above a whisper. "Ugly scars." "You're not ugly," she said firmly. Her hand lifted to caress his cheek. "Not there, maybe. But you wouldn't want to see the rest of me." "You don't know that," she said. "Yes I do," he said. "They even make me sick to see them." She brought her other hand up and sandwiched his cheeks between them. "Bob, I don't know what's happening right now. I'm scared, and excited and I don't know what to do or say. But I do know that there isn't anything about you that could make me sick. It's not possible." "You don't know what you're saying," he said. "No, you don't know me well enough to understand how I feel about you. I'm not even sure I understand. One minute I want to run away because I think that's the right thing to do. The next minute I want to tear off my..." She stopped, her eyes wild, but then lumbered on. " ... to do things I don't usually do. But I know this, Bob. It is not possible for you to show me anything that would drive me away because I couldn't stand to see it." He looked at her, anguish on his face. He wanted to believe ... but it was hard! "Show me now," she said suddenly. "Just get it over with. Then you'll know. And I'll know. Just show me your scars, Bob." "You're crazy," he said. "Probably," she said. "Who else hops in a car and drives a thousand miles non-stop to look for a man she's never met and doesn't know how to find when she gets where she's going?" "You did pretty well, I'd say." "Then maybe I'm not crazy," she said calmly. "Come on. Get naked, soldier." "I can't believe you said that," he groaned. "Do you need help?" she asked, reaching for the buttons of his shirt. He stepped back. "No. I'll do it. Just turn around." "No." she said. "What do you mean no?" he asked. "You saw me naked. Now it's my turn. You stared at me. I get to stare at you. Now get naked!" ------- He took his shirt off first, and then stopped as she walked around him in a circle. He was wounded twice before the IED sent him home. One was when a sniper sent a round past the edge of his body armor. It was a through and through wound in the arm and, other than being sore for a month, it hadn't really caused him any problem. She found the exit wound and touched it lightly. "What's this?" "Sniper," he said. "Went right through my arm." She walked around and found the puckered, round entrance wound. "I don't see that many scars," she said, looking at his chest. Her face was pink. "You know the scars I'm talking about," he said. "I can't see them yet," she said. He unbuckled his belt and then undid the snap and zipper of his jeans. "You're sure you want to do this," he said, his voice even. "I'm sure," she said. He pushed his jeans down to reveal purple and yellow striped boxers. She laughed. "What?" "Your shorts ... they're very interesting." She giggled. "I didn't make fun of your underwear," he groused. "You wouldn't touch my underwear," she corrected. He had to sit down at that point. He took the pants off his good leg first, revealing a long scar that went from the outside of his knee to mid calf. "I was running for cover in a fire fight and got snagged by some scrap metal," he said. "Ouch," she said, looking at the eight inch long scar. He sat there, staring at the leg that was still covered. "Go on," she said softly. At first she couldn't see much of anything. There was a tan colored sock like thing that went above his knee. The stump was firmly inserted into the socket of the prosthesis. It looked very foreign. She started to say it didn't look so bad, but realized she wasn't seeing what he was afraid of yet. When he crossed his knee, it was almost comical, because it was such a normal thing for a man to do. The part of his left leg where the prosthesis attached ended up lying on his right thigh. He bent forward and removed the leg. He laid it on the bed. He reached for the sock, but stopped. "You don't have to do this," he said. "I want to do this," she replied. "We need to do this, Bob." He closed his eyes ... and removed the sock. Julia had never seen the results of an amputation before. In truth, this one looked pretty good. It had been thought out, and done in a deliberate manner, rather than the hack job that sometimes had to be done in the field to save a soldier's life. The end of the bones had been shaped and screwed to each other, and the muscle and skin closed neatly over it. It had healed with typical thick, pale scarring, but the scars had been planned by the surgeon too, so that the prosthesis worked with them, instead of against them. It looked odd. It looked painful. She knelt, putting her face right in front of the leg, which was straight. He opened his eyes and bent the knee reflexively to move the ruined end of his leg away from her face. Her hands came up reflexively to cradle the stump, almost as if she were catching it. She looked up at his face and then back at the leg. She lifted it, making it straight again. "Does it hurt?" she asked. "Sometimes," he said, his voice shaky. "Not right now." "Can I touch it?" He swallowed. "I guess." She let the fingers of her right hand slide around the side of the leg, where the skin was normal. Then she pulled it toward her so that her palm smoothed over the top and then the end of the stump. "Did that hurt you?" she asked. "No." Now she brought both palms to run them over all parts of the scarred skin. "It's so sad," she said softly. He had nothing to say. She cupped the stump in both hands again, and leaned forward to press plump lips gently against the very end, where the scars were the thickest. She pulled back. "I wish I could kiss it and make it better for real," she said. She looked up at his face. He was crying, tears rolling down his cheeks. "I'm not disgusted," she said anxiously. "I know," he said, his voice tight. Then he burst into sobs of relief and joy. ------- Chapter 5 It was just natural for her to push him back on the bed and climb up beside him, hugging him, kissing his cheeks as he tried to wipe his eyes and face clean of tears. "Stop," he complained. "Why?" she asked petulantly. "Because I'm mostly naked and I'm going to get a boner if you don't," he laughed. "Ooooo, can I see?" she asked, looking at his shorts. "And you say you never learned to flirt," he said. "I think that's teasing," she said. "Teasing is different, isn't it?" "Not the outcome," he said. "If you want me to keep being a good boy, you'd better let me get dressed again." "Who says I want you to be a good boy?" she asked, pressing her breast against his chest. "Your mother does," he said. "What would she say if she saw you acting like this?" "She'd have a stroke," said Julia. "Well there you go." "My mother isn't here," said Julia, and put her hand on his abdomen. She started sliding her hand towards the waistband of his shorts. He grabbed her wrist. "You don't know what you're doing," he gasped. "That's what you said when you were sure I'd get all grossed out by your scars," she said, pushing against his hand. She could feel his tenseness, though. She stopped teasing him and pulled her hand free. "Which, I might add, I was not." She sat up. He lay beside her almost panting. She looked at the front of his outrageous boxer shorts. "Oh come on. Pleeeease? Can't I see it just for a second?" His hands jumped to cover the front of his boxers. "I don't get this," he complained. "We hardly know each other, but I'm pretty sure you're not the kind of woman who acts like this a lot. And I'm pretty sure you're trying not to come on to me, but sometimes you act like you are. I don't want to do the wrong thing and screw things up, but I don't know what the right thing is. What I'm sure about, though, is that I don't want to hurt your feelings." She leaned back. "So you're not attracted to me, and you're afraid you'll hurt my feelings if you say that." Her face drooped. He looked shocked. "Hell no!" he gasped. "I am attracted to you! I'm attracted to you like a mother fu-" He cut himself off and frowned. "Sorry. My language kind of got out of control over there. I mean I really like you and I want to..." He stopped again and his cheeks darkened. With an effort he finally got something else out. "Let's just say when I found out you weren't my sister, I was really glad, Okay?" "You're right," she said softly. "I don't act like this." She blinked. "Except with you." "But we just met," he said. "No," she corrected him. "I've known you for months. I've wanted to be able to be with you and see you and touch you for months. Your letters were so warm and caring, and you were so nice to the children. It made you irresistible to me." They stared at each other. "I don't know what to do," he sighed. "What should I do?" he asked. She looked at his hands, still lying on top of his wildly colored shorts. She didn't ask him to remove them, though. "Well, I'd really like to figure out if you have a girlfriend or not, because if you don't I want to apply for the position." He blinked. "Wow," he said softly. "I hope I don't." "Thank you," she said, feeling a thrill shoot through her body. "That makes me feel good." She sat down on her calves. "But the last thing I want to do is get you in trouble with the Army, so I probably should leave tomorrow, before they can find out I'm not your sister." "But I don't want you to leave," he said mournfully. Julia realized she was getting horny again. "And maybe it would be best if you slept in the barracks tonight." "So," he sighed. "You don't want me here." "No, I do want you here," she said. "That's the problem. But if you stay I'm not at all sure I can control myself." ------- To get away from the bed, Bob suggested they take a walk. It was chilly, but she'd brought a jacket, so it was no problem. They walked, hand in hand, and slowly told each other their life's story. She talked about where she'd grown up, and what school was like, and how she'd been afraid she wouldn't be a good teacher, and that the children wouldn't like her or listen to her. Student teaching had resolved most of her fears, but she described walking into her own classroom for the first time and seeing children arrive who were now her students, as one of the most difficult things she'd ever had to do. "Now you've done something even harder," he quipped. "You've stared at an amputee's stump." "Actually, that wasn't hard at all," she said. "You're kidding." "Nope. If I hadn't known you it might have been weird. But it was you, and I'm interested in everything about you. So he told her about Army life, in much more detail than his letters had, and what he could remember that had come before that. "I don't know how much I've forgotten," he said. "But I remember more each day, so I'm not going to worry about it. I do wish I could remember more about Claudia. I wish I could get in touch with her." "Maybe she wrote you letters too," suggested Julia. "Did you keep your mail?" "I think so," he said. "I don't actually remember keeping them, but almost everybody reads letters over and over again. Besides, I don't know what happened to my stuff after they put me on the evac." "Surely you can find that out," she said. "Probably." "Well, find out where your things are and see if you can get access to it," she said. "There might be a letter with a return address on it from her." "That's a good idea," he said. "The lady at records said the same thing, but somehow it sounds more hopeful when you say it." He hugged her to him as they walked along. "You know, if I didn't know your leg was missing I couldn't tell from the way you walk," she observed. "I used to have to think about every step," he said. "Now it feels a little more natural I guess." "We should do something tonight," she said, lifting up onto her toes in a little jump. "I thought I was staying in the barracks tonight," he said, smiling. "Not that," she said, pushing him with her hip. "Go bowling, or to a movie or something." "I don't know if I could throw a bowling ball or not," he said. "All right then," she said. "Dinner and a movie?" "You're on," he said. ------- Movies appear on military installations months after they have finished their runs in civilian theaters. Of the two choices they had at the WRAMC theater, though, that didn't matter because neither of them had seen either movie. They chose The Proposal, with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. Both loved it, but for different reasons. Bob loved it because, for the first time since his injury, he felt relaxed and like laughing was a normal thing to do. He also thought Sandra Bullock was hot. Julia loved it because the chaos of the relationship Margaret and Andrew were having on screen reminded her of the chaos in her relationship with Bob. It also had a happy ending, which fit with her own fantasy involving Bob. It was dark when they left the theater, and much colder. Neither was dressed for it and, since they had walked to both the restaurant and theater, they were stuck, almost a mile from the Fisher house she was staying in. "Too bad I didn't bring my running adaptor," he said as they hurried along. She had told him she normally ran at least two miles a day. "Have you ever tried running on your normal leg?" "Seems odd that it really is my normal leg now," he said. "You didn't answer the question," she said. "Why would they give me an adaptor for running if I could run on my walking leg?" he asked. "You still haven't answered the question," she pointed out. "No, I haven't tried running on this leg," he said. "So try," she said. "What do you have to lose?" ------- It turned out there was something to lose, though he would never think of it as a loss. The leg was built with an articulating ankle which, with the weight of the foot balanced properly, swiveled as he walked so that the heel of the shoe normally hit the ground first and then his weight was transferred to the sole as he leaned forward. This swivel of the ankle took time, though, and his first attempts at speeding up resulted in the foot hitting on the toe instead of the heel. That was unstable, and he would have fallen had she not been there to catch his elbow. They tried running with her holding his arm, her right leg moving forward with his left, as a sort of living crutch, but that didn't work either, because their upper bodies pulled away from each other and then pressed into each other. In the end he was only able to speed up his walk by hopping twice on his good foot while his left leg came forward and the ankle had time to do what it was designed to do. That gave him a lurching, hopping kind of gait. It also put a lot of pressure on his stump. He was in pain when they got to her door, and it showed on his face. "Come inside and rest," she said. "Thanks," he panted. ------- "You should take the leg off," she said, as he sank down into a chair. "I can't do that without taking my pants off," he said. "So? I've seen your crazy underwear, remember?" "I guess that's true," he admitted. He stood, undid his pants and let them drop. She moved to pull them from his legs. He removed the prosthesis, revealing a stump that was pink and inflamed looking. "Ohhhh," she cooed. "I have some Vaseline Intensive Care in my suitcase. Let me get it." She got the bottle and knelt in front of him. She coated her hands with the off white fluid and gently cupped the stump. He straightened what was left of his leg as she began sliding her hands around and around the end of his leg. He groaned. "Am I hurting you?" she asked anxiously. "No," he said, lying his head back on the chair. "It feels wonderful. The cream is tingly." "Good," she sighed, and continued to rub. She didn't find it distasteful at all. It was simply like rubbing a bent knee or elbow. She saw the front of his shorts move, and watched as it began to tent. She realized he was getting an erection. Her hands expanded their massage, taking in the entire remaining lower leg, and then the knee. He continued to moan every so often, and the tent got bigger. "I should go now," he said, lifting his head from the back of the chair. "You can't put pressure on it again this soon," she said, still rubbing. "I'm going to get embarrassed here in a second," he said. Julia had never felt the kind of wild and crazy urge that suddenly came over her at that moment. After the prom she had been scared, and excited and curious ... but mostly scared. What had happened then had been something she made herself participate in. But this urge was different, and on impulse she just gave in to it. Her hand shot up his thigh, into the loose leg of his boxers, and gripped his mostly hard prick firmly. "Because of this?" she asked, amazed by what she'd just done. His eyes rolled in their sockets. "I thought you said we weren't going to do this," he croaked. "Did I?" she asked, staring at the lump her hand was making. That hand, seeming to somehow know what to do, stroked up and down twice. "Oh Julia," he groaned, staring at the lump in his lap. "I've never done this before," she gasped, amazed at how wonderful his hot flesh felt in her grip. "You could have fooled me," he panted. She stroked him again. "I like it." "Me too!" he gasped. "Can I keep doing it?" "Oh pleeease, " he groaned. "I can't see," she complained. "Don't stop," he panted. "I want to see!" she insisted. She pulled her hand out and leaned forward to grip the waistband of his shorts as he whined at the loss of stimulation. "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked, his voice rough. She nodded and licked her lips. He leaned his head back again, putting pressure on his neck. The muscles in his shoulders bunched as he flexed them and his butt came up off the seat of the chair. She pulled and his erection flopped in a nest of curly brown hair as she pulled the shorts down. She pulled them off his short leg and then stopped, staring at what she had uncovered. "It's beautiful," she whispered. His head came back down and his eyes were hot. "It likes you," he said softly. She giggled. "I don't know what to do," she sighed. "What you were doing a minute ago felt pretty good," he said. She reached and gripped it again, right in the middle. As she moved her hand a knob was suddenly uncovered as thin skin slid down and off of it. "Wow," she said, leaning in to stare at what was revealed. She looked up at him. "It's so different than just reading about it in books." "I thought you'd done this before," he said. "In the dark, in the back of a car, with our clothes mostly on," she said. "I never really got to look at his." "I promise I'll let you look all you want to," he said, his voice rough. "But could you do that later?" She straightened on her knees. "You're horny!" she said. "Well duh." He barked, half laughter, half a sob. "Ohhh me tooo," she moaned. She jacked on him, perhaps a little exuberantly, and he winced. She stopped, and he gripped her hand, showing her the rhythm. She watched, fascinated as the head was covered up and uncovered. Something wet began creeping from the little hole in the tip and she stopped to explore it. He groaned. She swiped a fingertip through the wet and found it to be slippery. "There's so much I want to do," she sighed. "Go ahead," he panted. "I don't know how," she complained. "I want to do it right for you." "You were doing fine," he said. "Yes, but I wouldn't do fine on everything else. I need to practice, and now is not the time to learn or practice." "Now is the perfect time," he argued. She stood up. She whipped the red T shirt up and over her head. Her compact breasts sported stiff nipples now, engorged with desire. She unsnapped the jeans and wiggled her hips as she pushed them down and stepped out of them. Her left hand slid between her legs and rubbed. "There's only one thing I know how to do ... one thing I've done before." Her right hand reached for his hand and she pulled. "Let's get on the bed, Bob." Her voice was husky. "Really?" he asked, his eyes wide. "Hurry," she said. ------- He came up out of the chair like he had been launched, and with a comfortable, easy hopping gait moved to the bed, where he fell back onto it and used the bounce to position himself. He wasn't sure she'd follow, but hardly had he stopped bouncing when she was crawling on top of him, her naked body writhing as her lips found his and crushed against them. They almost bruised each other's lips until her hand found his hardness again, pulling at it, trying to get it to her sex. His instinct to be on top caused him to roll them, and he came down between her knees. Had his amputation been above the knee, it would have been awkward, but he could rest on both knees as he did a pushup. She lay under him, her hair fanned out on the pillow. She lifted her head to look down and saw his long, hard penis hanging down. She reached for it and this time pulled it effortlessly to her vulva. "Now, Bob, now," she moaned. His entry was fluid. She was tight, but sopping wet with lubricant. He stretched her, but it was a delightful stretching. She squeezed him, but that was delightful too. Their groans were an exact octave apart as they became one. Her arms snaked around him to squeeze their approval. Her mons veneris, a little oval pad of fat technically described as the anterior portion of the vulva, did its job perfectly and protected her pubic bone from damage as his pubic bone approached and impacted. Her clitoris, already erect, sent zings of pleasure to her brain, and elicited another groan of pleasure. It was nothing like what happened after prom. Nothing. He whimpered, his penis deep in her, as he kept trying to push it deeper but could not. He wiggled his hips and she cried out at the stimulation to her clit. Her cry, right in his ear, was recognized by his brain as a good cry, though, and it broke the stalemate of trying unsuccessfully to penetrate her deeper than was possible. He pulled back and slammed in again. Julia gasped "Oh fuck!" She wanted to burst into laughter as she thought, for only a second or two that, apparently, she also cursed when she did this. He did it again ... and again ... and again, until suddenly there was a rhythm to his movements that could be depended on, and her body began responding by pushing up as he pushed down. All the while her voice, hoarse now, repeated words she had only rarely spoken before this. "Oh fuck ... oh fuck ... oh fuck ... oh fuck." Julia suddenly heard what her voice was chanting, and she forced her voice to change from profanity to his name. What he was doing felt so wonderful to her, so beautiful, so right, that she tried to commit every second of what was happening to memory. His noises, on the other hand, were gibberish as he lunged into her, breathing and seeming to choke, his eyes wide open, but obviously seeing nothing, or something in another universe. There was no intelligence in those eyes, but even as she saw that emptiness, Julia somehow knew he was thinking about her. Then his eyes cleared and he stared into hers as he said "Oh damn." His smooth rhythm halted suddenly as he bored in, flattening her mons again. He said "Oh Julia!" and his eyelids fluttered as his face twisted. She felt a ball of heat suddenly appear deep inside her, and the book knowledge of what was happening took on new meaning as his ejaculate flushed into her in strong spurts, hot and wet. That felt right too, and she cried out in joy as she accepted his seed into her body. There were no thoughts of danger or complications. Not then. Those might come later, but for now this felt like what she had been born to do. She felt complete and perfectly happy on a level that was brand new. His eyes stared down into hers again. "Oh Julia," he sighed, and she saw the energy drain from him like water being squeezed from a sponge. He sank down, covering her with his body. She took short, panting breaths, but when he tried to roll off of her she wouldn't let him, craving the feel of his weight on her and his penis, still filling her. ------- She kept him on her for five minutes, and finally let him roll them until they were on their sides, still holding each other tightly. Sweat made them slippery, and was what caused them to loosen their grip just enough to get a little air between them. She saw indecision in his eyes, or perhaps worry. "Thank you," she whispered. "Really?" She kissed him, a lingering soft-lipped kiss that only lasted a few seconds. "I'm sorry about not being ... um ... prepared," he said. "Neither of us was prepared," she responded. "It was spontaneous." "And you're all right with it?" "I'm perfect with it," she said. "What if I got you pregnant?" he asked. "Then I'm pregnant," she sighed. "That's it?" His voice rose. "That's how I feel right now," she said. "Don't ruin if for me." "Yes Ma'am," he said. Male ego reared its head. "Did you cum?" "No." Male ego was crushed. "I'm sorry. I guess I got kind of excited." "I'm not sorry," she said. "It was perfect. It couldn't have been better. I'm gloriously happy right now." Male ego bloomed and threatened to create a mushroom cloud. ------- They kissed. They went through the set of possible kisses, trying them all, liking some more than others, but always seeking to kiss again, until they were suddenly writhing together and his penis, which had only wilted half way, still sheathed within her, became firm again. They discovered this when he began the instinctive thrust of the mating dance. "Again?" she asked, delighted. "You want to be on top?" he asked. Julia had seen a few porn videos in college, at this or that party. Her knowledge of what "on top" meant was severely limited by what she'd seen. Still, he sounded hopeful, so she rolled with him until she was lying on him, her knees flanking his hips. She sat up, in preparation for getting her feet under her, as she had seen the women in the videos do, so they could rise and fall, like you were "supposed" to. Her first surprise was when, as her weight came down on him, she felt his delightful hardness dig into her. Then, when she put her hands on his chest, so she could lift a leg, her clit rubbed his pubic bone. "Can I just sit here?" she asked. "You can do anything you want," he sighed, staring at her breasts. So she sat and wiggled, and within only minutes she knew she could have an orgasm doing this. It would be easy, even easier than doing it herself. "I'm gonna cum," she panted. "You are?" "Oh yeah," she whined. "Go for it," he urged her, and reached to play with her stiff nipples. That simply added to the pleasure, and she shuddered as the orgasm rushed toward her. "Oh Bob," she blurted, unbelieving as what exceeded her wildest dreams washed over her body. It wasn't a bone wrenching orgasm. She'd had a few of those while she strummed her clitty with her fingers. This was more of something her entire body could participate in, something that was like taking a huge bite of something delicious that almost overwhelmed the taste buds. And something she knew instantly she had to have again. To her delight, as it ebbed, she realized she could get that feeling back almost immediately ... like there were a lot of those orgasms out there, stacked up like dominos and ready to be tipped into each other. She rubbed faster and leaned forward, closing her eyes. "It's going to happen again!" she panted. In an almost unbroken stream, she had five in a row before she couldn't catch her breath and felt like she might pass out. She flopped forward, in the midst of the last orgasm and felt his arms crush her as the world bounced. She realized he'd rolled them and was plowing into her again, pounding her recklessly. She didn't care. She bounced, her head flopping as violence that was completely acceptable surrounded her limp body. She loved it. "Ohhh baby," he moaned. "Can I cum again? I'll pull out if you want me to." She stiffened the muscles in her neck enough to stop her head from moving and give her vocal chords enough stiffness to speak. "In me," she gasped. He sobbed then, dug deep, and she got to feel that ball of wet heat again. It was even better the second time. ------- Chapter 6 Bob woke to the feel of a warm woman in his arms, and the smell of sex in the air. He had to pee. The lights were still on. He couldn't see the clock, but he was pretty sure it was very late. Julia slept, her mouth agape, her body loose and relaxed. She didn't wake as he rolled away from her. Instead she pulled up into a ball, perhaps because he was withdrawing his warmth. He hopped to the latrine and took care of business, including washing off his sticky, gooey penis. The memory of what had happened flooded his mind. He was confused. He was still quite sure she wasn't lying about her inexperience. She didn't do this with every GI she happened to run into. But he couldn't believe she was that interested in him. Insecurity, based on losing a part of his body, wasn't banished easily. She had let him cum in her. Twice. Maybe she was on the pill. But why would she be on the pill? She said she didn't have a boyfriend. Did women take the pill anyway, just in case? He didn't think so. She would have said so. And she had said if she was pregnant she was pregnant. That bent his mind too. This was just too good to be true. That was the problem. His superstitious mind couldn't account for this much good happening without something bad being there to counterbalance it. She was leaving in the morning. That was bad. He looked at the clock. It was two-fifteen. He decided that if he only had six or seven hours left with her, he was going to make it count. He hopped to the light switch, and then to the bed in the dark. He rolled her over, thinking she'd wake up. She didn't. He pulled the covers down and rolled her back. She moaned in her sleep. He pulled his own covers down, got in, got arranged, and pulled the covers up over both of them. "What are you doing?" she asked, her voice muzzy with sleep. "Covering us up," he said. "Mmmm." She scooted over and cuddled against him. He worked an arm under her and pulled her close, kissing her hair. It smelled good. He had been hoping to have sex again, but this was fine. She trusted him, wanted him, was snuggled up to him. After eight months of discomfort, terror and pain, this was just as good as sex. Ten minutes later his mouth was gaping open in sleep too. ------- Morning wasn't quite as comfortable, at least not for Julia, who was not used to waking up in bed with a man. Even a man she liked. Nor was she used to waking up full of very dangerous sperm which, in the heat of the moment she had craved, but now that the cold light of reason was illuminating things, didn't seem nearly so desirable. Then he woke too and smiled at her, a smile that was so genuine, and so happy, that she pushed negative thoughts away. Still, she was in no mood for fooling around. "When should I leave?" she asked, sitting up. She was mildly astonished that being naked in his presence didn't bother her in the least. In fact, being naked in front of him made her feel very good. "I really hate to say this," he said, sounding like he really hated to say it, "but the sooner the better." "What will you tell them?" she asked. "I don't know yet." "Will you get into trouble?" "People will be unhappy, but what can they really do? I'll pay for the room. I know they said it was a donation, but I'll offer to pay." "I don't want to go," she sighed. "I don't want you to." His eyes raked her naked body and she suddenly felt nude, in stead of naked, as if that made any sense at all. "I should get dressed," she said. "I wish you didn't have to." "What did last night mean?" she asked suddenly. He thought for a handful of seconds. "It's hard to put into words," he said slowly. "When I think about what happened the first word I think of is 'important.' I mean I don't have a lot of experience with that kind of thing in my life, and it was fantastic and all that, but it was also important to me. Does that make sense?" She nodded, and her brow furrowed. "Can I tell you something?" he asked. "Of course," she said. "I want to say I love you ... but we ... I'm not sure I really understand what love is, and I don't want to screw things up between us." He looked worried. "Does that make sense?" She nodded again. "I think I understand that very well. I have these feelings for you and they scare me. I mean I just don't do what I did last night." "I know," he said. "But I have to tell you, I'm sure glad you broke your rule." She looked at his naked shoulders and felt a tingle in her groin. "I'm pretty sure the only reason the rule got broken was because it was with you," she said. Then she turned and hurried to grab some clothes and escape into the bathroom before things got out of control again. ------- He really wanted to follow her into the bathroom. His motives were mixed. The base male in him wanted the woman again ... to breed her again. On a higher plane he just wished he could watch her as she did normal, routine things ... whatever she did to get ready to go somewhere. Even watching her brush her teeth would be fun, especially if she did it naked. But he was also aware that the time for shenanigans had passed. He didn't want to think about the possibility that the previous night was the only time something like that would happen between them. His intellect told him that was possible, perhaps even likely, but he didn't want to contemplate that now. Instead, he closed his eyes and relived what he could remember of it. It seemed to have happened so quickly! He concentrated on her scent, and the feel of her skin against his. The warm clasp of her sex on his manhood was easy to remember, but the sweet agony of orgasm escaped him, except that he knew it had felt wonderful. He was getting hard, so he stopped daydreaming and got up. He dressed. He'd take a shower after she left, before he went back to the SFAC and told them she had gone. He didn't really care what they said. At least it would be a diversion from the normal boring day, even if they yelled at him. He had gathered up her belongings and had them all on the bed when she came out dressed, as usual, in jeans and a T shirt. She packed in silence. He watched her, and enjoyed being able to. Before she closed her suitcase she removed a pen from it. There was a pad by the phone in the room and she wrote on it. "Here's my number and address," she said. "I really hope you write to me. You can call too, but I really love getting letters from you." "I'll write one to the kids too. I'll explain why it's been so long since I wrote." "I told them you were on a secret mission, which was why you hadn't written," she said. He laughed. She stopped him with a kiss. When that was over he stared into her eyes. "I don't do one night stands," he said. "I may not remember everything, but I know you're important to me, because last night wouldn't have happened if you weren't." "I have to leave," she said, breathlessly. "If I don't, I won't." "I'll walk you to the car," he said. "No. If you do that it will only extend the pain. I'm barely in control right now." "All right." He stayed where he was as she picked up her suitcase and went to the door, her keys in her hand. She opened the door and then turned around. "If I fell in love with you ... would you be upset?" she asked. "No," he said immediately. "Find out if you have a girlfriend," she said. "I will." "Call me when you know." "I will." She ran then, leaving the door open. He went to it and saw her bypass the elevator and go into the stairwell. He could hear the rapid thump of her shoes on the treads as she darted down, away from him. He didn't try to get to a place where he could see her running to the car. He knew it would hurt too much. ------- Lois Freebinder was a nineteen year old civilian, who had worked for the Army for a grand total of three months. She felt lucky to have the job, because DOD jobs were cherry, and hard to get. She intended to work hard and get well into the system, which was known to take care of those who fit in. That she was a glorified hotel clerk didn't bother her a bit. The work was easy and she got to go home on time. She got paid better than minimum wage and had benefits too. So when the confused looking soldier tried to explain that his sister, who had been staying in one of the Fisher houses, had to leave for an emergency back home, and that he'd never even gotten her properly registered, she tried to be helpful. She asked for the sister's name, which he gave her. She asked for her address and phone number next. "She moved," he said, looking uncomfortable. "I didn't even know where she was until she came to see me." "Did she tell you where she moved?" asked Lois. He blinked and then pulled a folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket. He held it out and she unfolded it to see an address and phone number. "Perfect," said Lois. She typed things into the computer. "How long have you been here?" she asked. He told her, thinking that she was just being pleasant, but she looked in a book and said "That makes her visit free. What house and room number?" He told her. She typed some more and then smiled happily. "That's it. Thanks for getting it taken care of." He was amazed at how simple it had been. Nobody cared that she had never provided proof of ID. They just checked boxes and filled blanks and the system rolled on. On impulse, when he left the guest housing office, he returned to records management. He told the clerk he had an update for his records. Within ten minutes his DD Form 93 had been updated with a new address and phone number for Claudia Strangline, Bob's next of kin. Half an hour after that, he informed the SFAC that his sister had been called back home because of a family emergency, but that her room had been taken care of. When asked if she wanted to submit a travel claim, he simply said "No." ------- It wasn't at the exact same moment that Bob had lied on his DD Form 93, or to the SFAC, but it was the same day, some hours later. Claudia Strangline, exhausted and wringing wet, gave one final exhausted push, and finally had her baby. The team of doctors and nurses hovering around Claudia split their attention between mother and child. To keep from losing the baby, Claudia had been flat on her back for three months. Prior to that she'd been to the doctor so many times she couldn't remember them all. While carrying any baby to term is a feat worthy of praise, for Claudia it had been a herculean event. Doctors were convinced a number of times that they'd lose one, the other or both of them. But now the worst was over. Toxemia was no longer the issue. Now Claudia just needed to regain her strength and health. The baby was pronounced to be in perfect health and placed gently on his mother's breast. Claudia, so weak it took all her strength to place both hands on her son, smiled happily. It would take her almost another month to fully recuperate. During that month she would think of her little brother often. She felt bad because she hadn't written to him for most of her pregnancy. The news was always bad, and he had enough on his plate, stuck in a foreign land, in danger's way. And then, when she was hospitalized, she didn't want him to know that either. Then Josh was offered the promotion he so richly deserved. But that meant moving to Kansas City. She was in the hospital, and could do nothing. Still, this was what would secure their future, so she told him to take it. The company sent movers to pack and move everything to the new house. The realtor took care of having the old house cleaned and readied for showing. Josh worked on the nursery at the new house, and commuted to see her, because she didn't want to change doctors at this stage of things. Plus nobody would make any guarantees about the safety of moving her to a hospital in Kansas City. She resisted writing him until she was well enough that she could say truthfully that she had good news, and nothing but good news. Now she could tell him he was an uncle, and send pictures, and beg his forgiveness for being so distracted for so long. She was sure she'd done the right thing in remaining silent all these months. Until the letter she sent was returned, undeliverable, because the soldier was "No longer assigned in theater." ------- Bob entered the office and sat down in a chair across the desk from Colonel Bell, who was leafing through a file. He looked up. "So, how do you feel today?" Bob, who still thought about Julia most of the day, shrugged. "About the same, I guess." Bell frowned. "I was hoping that the visitor you had recently might have improved your spirits." Bob stared. "How did you know I had a visitor?" "All visitors are logged into the file. Why didn't you tell me you had a sister, Bob?" "It's one of the things I couldn't remember," said Bob, shrugging. "And the weird thing was that I found out about it the same day ... um ... my sister showed up to see me. I was doing a routine records update and her information was listed as my next of kin." "And this is the first time she's come to visit you since you arrived?" Bell was still frowning. Bob wasn't prepared for this line of questioning. His instinct was to try to keep the subterfuge going. "She moved while I was deployed, and they couldn't contact her when I got wounded. I guess when I stopped sending her letters she started trying to find me, and wasn't successful until last week." "And how was your reunion?" asked the Colonel. Bob's grin was honest. "It was fantastic," he said. "Excellent," said Bell. "Let's talk a little bit about how she reacted to your injuries." The session lasted another thirty minutes while Bob answered questions, primarily about how he felt about things. He thought it was odd to be asked how he felt about the artificial leg he was currently wearing, but he answered all the questions as honestly as he could. ------- When Julia came home from school on the Friday after she spent one glorious night with Bob, and saw the light on her answering machine blinking, she felt excitement, hoping Bob had finally called. When she had purchased her answering machine, it came pre-loaded with an androgynous voice that said, simply, "Please leave a message after the tone." With various warnings in mind about phone security and outgoing messages that gave too much information to strangers, she just left things as they were. She hoped Bob, not hearing her voice or name on the machine, had trusted that he had the right number and left her a message. She punched the flashing red button and waited. "Yes, Ms. Strangline, this is Colonel William Bell, of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. I'm calling about your brother Robert. I'd like to discuss his case with you. If you could please give me a call at your convenience I would be most appreciative." A phone number followed. Julia stared at the phone. She had no idea what to do now. Obviously Bob given someone her phone number, and told him it was the number to his sister. She didn't know why he would do that, since he had said she should leave so that no one would be able to find out who she was. She worried about it the rest of the evening. She worried about it in the morning and was so distracted that her children noticed it during class and asked her what was wrong. She hadn't told them she'd found Bob yet, because they hadn't agreed on a story to tell the kids. She was waiting for a letter to arrive, and was going to play it by ear based on what was in that letter. "I'm just thinking about something," she said. Then, during recess, while Mrs. Foster was keeping an eye on the running, screaming children, Julia found a quiet corner and used her cell phone to call the number. It wasn't quite that easy, of course. The number was answered, but Colonel Bell was with a patient. The woman who answered wanted to take a name and number, so that Bell could call her back. Julia didn't want to leave either. It was bad enough that the Army had her home phone number. She certainly didn't want them to have her cell number too. "I'm returning his call," she said. "I'll try again later, if you can give me some idea of when I might be able to reach him." "If you'll give me your name and number I'll have him call you," insisted the woman. "I can't receive phone calls except at certain times," said Julia. "I'll have to call him." "Well, you can try around three. He usually answers messages and calls people back between three and four. But I'm not promising you he won't already be on the phone." Julia said she understood and hung up. At three she had Lucinda Roberts, who could read at a fifth or sixth grade level already, read the rest of the class a story while she stepped into the hallway and called Bell again. The same woman answered and, with what sounded like vindication, said Bell was on the phone. Julia said she'd hold. Five or six minutes later a man's voice came on the line. "Colonel Bell," he said curtly. "Yes," said Julia, her heart suddenly in her throat. "You called my home number and left a message that you wanted to talk to me about Robert ... my ... um brother." "What is his full name?" asked Bell. "Robert Calhoun Hickory," said Julia. "His DOB?" "DOB?" asked Julia. "Date of birth," said the man. "Oh." She thought. He'd told her what his birth date was. "August twenty-fifth," she said. "And the year of birth?" She felt panic eating at her stomach. "I can never remember," she said, her voice tight. "I have to figure it out each time. Wait a second." She knew he was twenty-four, but she didn't just want to subtract two from her own birth year until she thought about it. Taking her own birthday into account, she came up with what she hoped was right. She said the number out loud. "All right," said the man. "I have his file here, but I needed to make sure I was talking to the right person. I understand you got to visit your brother recently." "Yes," said Julia, her voice only slightly strained. "How did you feel about that visit, Ms. Strangline?" "I was very happy about it," said Julia, her mind rebelling at being called by the wrong name. "And his condition ... his wounds ... were you able to cope with that information?" "That didn't bother me at all," she said, truthfully. "I was just so happy he was alive." "Good, good. Ms. Strangline, I want to say that your brother is actually in very good health, physically. It's his mental and emotional condition I'm more concerned with." "He's all right, isn't he?" she asked, fear in her voice. "Traumatic Brain Injury, what we call TBI, is a relatively new phenomenon, in terms of diagnosis and treatment," said the man. "So it's somewhat touch and go. We're trying to gather data and assess these patients, but the level of information is still somewhat lower than we wish it was." "You wish you had more patients with TBI?" asked Julia, incredulous. "No! Of course not," said the man, sounding uncomfortable. "We just wish we understood things better." "What do you want me to do?" she asked, wondering why this man was telling her these things. "Well, I realize this is somewhat abrupt, and I wish I'd known you were coming to see him so I could have arranged to talk to you personally ... but I think it might be good for him to get away from Walter Reed for a while ... get out into the world, you know? And as you are his only living relative ... I mean I wouldn't feel comfortable just turning him loose with no one to keep an eye on him ... but if you were inclined ... and able of course, to ... let's say host him for a while?" "You want to send Bob to stay with me?" asked Julia, barely able to squeeze the words out. "I know it's a lot to ask, but he has given so much for those who stay at home. And it could be for a certified time. I could require that he come back if there were any problems, and on a given date in any case. You wouldn't just be stuck with him, ma'am. I really think it would be good for him, mentally." "Yes!" blurted Julia. "Excellent. I'm very happy you're agreeable to this trial visit." "He can stay as long as he needs to," she said, breathlessly. "Let's try a few months to start with," said the man. "Then I'll have him come back here and we'll assess how things are going. If it's working we can extend it until he's ready to return to duty." "You're sending him back over there?" Julia was scandalized. "He lost a damn leg over there!" "I misspoke. His case is being reviewed by a medical board. They'll decide whether or not he can still serve, and in what capacity. His own wishes are part of that process. If he wants to get out of the Army, it's possible that could happen. If he wants to stay in, that's possible as well. That has yet to be decided. But my input to the board is a requirement before they can make a final determination." "I see," she said. "Send him here. When can I expect him? Do I need to do anything?" "Just verify your address for me," said Bell. Julia rattled it off without even thinking. Her heart seized as she realized she might have just said the wrong thing. "That matches what we have on file," said Bell. "To be quite honest, I haven't approached Sgt Hickory about this. I didn't want to raise any hopes if your circumstances prevented this from taking place. I'll have him call you when something is arranged. Would that be agreeable?" "Oh yes," said Julia weakly, who then sat down on the floor outside her classroom, before her knees gave way and she fell. ------- Chapter 7 "I thought I wasn't due back here for another three weeks," said Bob, as he slumped into the chair across from Col Bell. "I just have one quick question," said Bell. "How do you feel about your sister?" "Is this one of those Oedipus kinds of questions?" asked Bob, grinning. "Are you comfortable with her? Did her visit cause you any anxiety?" "Oh," said Bob, realizing that Bell was talking about Julia, instead of the sister Bob still wouldn't recognize if she stood in front of him and slapped his face. "No." "You seem a little unsure," suggested Bell. "I didn't want her to leave," said Bob. "Her having to leave was the only anxiety she caused." "So if you were invited to go stay with her for a while ... you'd be all right with that?" "Hell yes!" said Bob, leaning forward. He felt his face getting hot. "I'd call that an honest reaction," said Bell, smiling. "Okay, here's the deal. I'm putting you on convalescent leave, at her address, for ninety days. Then I want to see you again and do another assessment. I need you to keep track of the headaches, and everything else we've talked about, particularly if you start feeling anxious about something, or depressed. This is very important, Bob. How this goes could have a big impact on the board's findings." "I feel better already," said Bob. "Wait. I have to talk to her about this." "I called her already," said Bell. "She can't wait for you to get there. Let me make a phone call and I'll get your orders started." ------- Most people never go through the kinds of things a soldier does. Most people don't go to basic training, military style, in order to be trained for their job. Most people don't carry a gun and load of ammunition, looking for an enemy to take down. Most people, for that matter, don't have the kinds of enemies who require more than a verbal put-down now and again. And most people don't worry about whether or not they can make it to the next doorway without getting shot. Bob went from days where he was either bored to tears or scared out of his mind, to the depths of despair as he realized he had lost a leg, to more of that special kind of boredom that makes a man feel only inches tall and which looked like it might never end. Most people never have to go through that. But most people also never get the kind of news that results in the kind of euphoria that makes up for being terrified, shot at, and parts of your body being missing. That's how Bob felt. His world, which up to that point had been pretty miserable on a daily basis, was suddenly filled with sunshine, cool breezes and good smelling women. Well, one good smelling woman, anyway. If he could just get to her. And that was the next hurdle the one-legged veteran had to jump ... getting to her. It didn't occur to him to call her and ask her to drive another thousand miles to get him. He did think about buying a car, but he wasn't actually sure his license was still good, considering that he'd never convinced anyone he could still drive safely with a fake leg. Getting pulled over and delayed for something stupid like that wasn't anything he was interested in. So he went with Greyhound instead. If you've never traveled any significant distance on a public service bus line, you haven't really experienced an icon of American life. It is the epitome of the "hurry up and wait" kind of thing you hear so much about and think you've experienced. But you have never experienced it like Greyhound can dish it out. The military comes close, but even they're no real competition for the mind numbing agony of taking the bus more than a hundred miles. They stop at every little village and hamlet. Old ladies and women with three small children struggle onto the bus and stand there, looking at their new temporary world, while the driver does mysterious and time consuming things outside the bus. Then you're finally on the road again, only to stop in another twenty miles and do it all over again. Except this time someone gets off and can't seem to find his luggage. The pace crawls all the time, and you find yourself wishing you had just walked, because you feel like you'd get there faster if you were walking. It's slower than molasses on a twenty-below-zero day. Except, of course, for rest stops, where all you have planned is getting something to eat, or maybe visiting a rest room where your shoulders don't rub the walls and you can sit down on the throne without having to plan how you're going to get back up and decent again, all before you open the door. At rest stops your primary worry is that the bus will leave without you. They don't do head counts, like they did when you were a kid on a field trip. Surveys and traffic studies show that the average person traveling in a car can plan on moving across the map at an average of fifty miles per hour. The bus is smokin' along at an average of thirty. In other words, it takes twice as long to take the bus. Of course, if you were fascinated in Social Studies class, there is an upside to the bus. You'll meet a class of people you never knew existed before. You've heard about them, and you see them all the time. You might even know a few, but you don't really notice them. Unless, of course, you are in that class of people. Then they are your world. People who take the bus are involved in the real nitty gritty of life. They are down and dirty, sometimes literally, with what it takes to struggle on another day. Nobody takes the bus because they like it. Not even the drivers. For these people the bus is the only reason they aren't walking, or hitch hiking. It's not because they're weird, or oddballs or anything like that. It's simply because they don't have the means to own a car, or fly, or take the train. They're poor, that's all. They have the same hopes and dreams as you and I do. Most of them have a job of some kind, and people who love them. They have friends and family just like everybody else. But they are in a class by themselves. They'll talk to you, for one thing, and out of interest, and not just curiosity. They'll share anything they have with you. They'll smoke a joint in the bathroom at the rest stop as if marihuana was as common as cigarettes. They are people stripped of political correctness, just saying what they think, and being who they are. For these people, an artificial leg is simply an artificial leg. They are truly interesting. And they are the only reason travelers on long bus trips don't commit suicide along the way. It took Bob sixty-nine hours to get from WRAMC to Boonville, Missouri. That's why the euphoria that had him acting like he was wigged out on cocaine, when he started his journey, had mellowed to something just above the level of hard sleep by the time he climbed off the bus for the last time and looked blearily around. She was standing only ten feet away. It was only April, but she had on a summer halter dress, and was grinning from ear to ear, her hands clasped in front of her as her body twisted to and fro. And, just like that, the euphoria was back. ------- "I could have gotten a taxi," said Bob, standing ten inches from Julia, his eyes devouring her. He had not touched her yet. The anticipation was exquisite, but he knew he smelled awful. "I took the day off," she said, her voice low. Her cheeks turned pink. "I thought you'd never get here." "Me too," he said, suddenly weary again. "Let's get out of here." "Your luggage," she reminded him. "Oh yeah," he sighed. "Besides, if I don't get to a bathroom I'm going to explode," she said. "I was afraid I'd be in there when the bus arrived and I'd miss you." "Go potty," he said, grinning. "I'll get my duffle bag." She fled, running like she was being chased. He watched the wind of her passage flip the hem of her dress up enough that he saw the flash of one thigh. He walked over to where the driver was keying open the big compartments that held suitcases and strollers and everything else imaginable. He saw his duffel bag and pointed at it. The driver hauled it out and handed it to him. "Thank you for your service," he said, smiling. "No problem," said Bob, unprepared for that. He slung his bag and walked towards the restrooms. He was thinking about going himself when she hurried out of the women's door. Now that she could accept a squeeze without fearing an accident, she threw herself at him. The scent of her hair, and the feel of her body under his hands made him erect almost immediately. "Phew!" she said, leaning back. "You stink." "Sorry," he said, smiling just enough to make it a smile. "I don't care," she said. "I'll take you any way I can get you." "I appreciate that, but how about you take me home and I'll grab a shower anyway," he said. "Home," she said softly. Her eyes glazed over, but only for a few seconds. Then she was pulling him by one hand, like a little girl pulls her grandfather when she's in a hurry to show him something. ------- What she wanted to show him was her breasts. Once in the car, with the engine started, she turned in her seat and shamelessly pulled the top of her light dress down. Her breasts spilled out. His surprise turned to mirth as he saw temporary tattoos stuck all over them. Big red arrows pointed to her nipples, going back to the words "Suck here." He saw another that said "All yours," and one that said "Got milk?" "I have them all over me," she said, breathlessly. Her face went crimson again. "I got them at a sex shop." "What are you doing hanging around sex shops?" he laughed. "After you..." She licked her lips, not quite able to say graphically what she was thinking. "After you, I had to have something to take care of my ... um ... urges. I had to go buy a Bob." "A Bob," said Bob. "You know," she said, flushing bright red. "A ... um ... battery operated boyfriend ... a bob ... something to pretend was you." "I see," he said, grinning. "I can't wait to meet Bob." "No!" she gasped. "Why not?" he said. "I want to see how close you got to the real thing." "Not close at all," she said in a rush. "It's just rubber. But I had to have something. You can't see it, though. I'd be too embarrassed!" "But I can stare at your pussy ... where Bob, my competition, has been trying to steal my girl." She pulled her top back up to cover her bare breasts. Bob noticed it was just in time, since a middle aged couple was walking their way, carrying suitcases that belonged to a seventeen-year-old girl named Sharon. Sharon was a fellow traveler from the bus, who had gotten on at Hannibal, on her way to stay with her grandparents. Her parents had kicked her out of the house when they found out she was pregnant. She was talking animatedly to her grandmother, who had her arm around the girl. "He's not your competition," Julia said, still embarrassed. "Are we going to sit in the parking lot all day, talking about who you've been cheating on me with?" he asked, grinning. She slapped his shoulder, and then turned to put the car in gear. A block later she muttered "I bet you jacked off after I left." "Sure did," he said, grinning. "Almost constantly there for a day or two." She leaned over to lift his right hand. "So what's her name?" she growled. ------- He stared at her all the way home. He couldn't have gotten back to the bus station on his own if his life had depended on it. He noticed none of the stores or street names ... only her. She knew he was staring, because she glanced at him several times. His erection was complete by the time she turned into the driveway to a white stucco bungalow, surrounded by tall oak trees. He made no effort to hide his erection from her, only moving it to a more comfortable position under his jeans as he shouldered his duffel bag and followed her onto the covered front porch. She keyed open the door and he entered the cool, dark interior. "It's small," she said. "I love it," he said. "It only has one bedroom." "It's perfect," he said. She pulled him to a doorway and pushed him inside. "Shower!" she barked. "Before you stink up my house." The house, and the bathroom in it, were circa nineteen-seventy-something, which meant the shower head sprouted from the wall above the tap to the bathtub. The shower curtain, installed on an expandable bar, could be draped inside the tub to prevent spray from getting the floor wet. The water felt good after three days of sitting in the same seat. He was just standing there, balanced on his one foot, letting the water hit his head, when he felt a draft and turned to find her climbing into the back of the tub. She was naked. She really did have tattoos everywhere. "You'll ruin your tattoos," he said, drinking in her beauty. "I have more," she said tersely. "I'm here to supervise." "Uh huh," he said. "Snap to, soldier!" she barked. Then, with a half sheepish look, she asked "Did I say it right?" "Perfect," he said. "Well get on with it then!" she bellowed in her best drill sergeant voice. "Swab the decks! Shiver me timbers!" "That's Navy," he laughed. Her answer was to grab the soap and attack his body. She washed him with her bare, soapy hands, and she washed him everywhere, to include his stump. She even slid her hand between his buttocks, her finger finding and pressing gently against his rectum. His prick, which was already rock hard, bounced then. It was somehow the most intimate thing he'd ever experienced. She saved his penis for last, and then, while her hands loved his stiff prick and the full balls under it, she turned her face up for kisses. He kissed her hungrily, and finally touched her with his own hands, sliding his fingertips from her rib cage, just under her arm pits, down to her hips. He pulled gently, until he forced her lower body against his, her hands trapped between them. She finally relinquished his manhood, and rose on tip toes to get it between her legs. Then she rubbed her loins against his, using his soapy stiffness to masturbate herself. He broke the kiss. "I need you," he said, his voice cracking. "Not half as much as I need you," she sighed. Then it was frantic rinsing, and the shower curtain being thrown aside as she threw him a towel and, with her own in hand, ran from the bathroom. He followed, hopping, to her room ... their room now? ... and watched as she hastily tried to get her body dry. "Quick!" she yelped, pointing to the bed. He lay down, thinking she was going to ride him, but as soon as he was on the bed her mouth attacked his prick, sucking deeply. To his amazement her lips kept going down and down, until they mashed his still damp pubic hair as she deep throated him. Then she pulled off, her eyes wild. "Oh fuck, oh fuck, I can't wait," she whined, and fairly leapt onto the bed, where she did mount him like a pony, sinking down onto his erection with a satisfied groan. Then she frantically jerked her lower body like a belly dancer, leaning forward to get maximum clitoral stimulation. Within half a minute he felt tears dripping onto his chest as she rabbit-fucked him into her first orgasm. "Oh Bobby, honey," she wailed, as her pussy contracted hard on his cock, squeezing it as she came. "Oh Baby, I love you so much!" "I love you too," he gasped, and his mind fairly exploded with the knowledge that, for the first time in his life, he actually knew what love felt like, both on the receiving end and what was in his heart towards her. She started to relax as her orgasm waned, and he rolled them over. His cock popped out of her in the process and her whine of unhappiness was like an icy wind going up his spine. His stump waving in the air as he got on his knees to push back into her. Her happy sigh of satisfaction at being filled again was like a switch had been thrown and he suddenly felt semen rushing through his penis. But he was so horny that he fucked her through that orgasm, never stopping, just to pump his essence into her. Instead he concentrated on making her squeal, his own cum merely making her super lubricated so he could continue to pleasure her. He sucked her nipples as he ground the base of his cock against her pubis. He both felt and heard her next orgasm wash over her as she flailed under him. Three orgasms later she finally fell limp, her arms thrown wide, and her legs likewise tossed apart. "No more," she moaned, panting for air. "Just a little longer," he whispered. "I have something for you." He picked her legs up, one at a time, and draped them over his shoulders. He felt her lock her ankles behind his neck, and kneed forwards until her butt lifted off the bed. "Ohhhh," she groaned as he pushed down into her defenseless pussy. "So deep." "I love you," he said, meaning it with every fiber of his body. "You'd better," she panted, unable to breathe deeply. "I do," he said. He pushed in one last time and, with his eyes locked on hers, let himself cum in her. It wasn't a wild or violent orgasm. He just let the soothing fluid shoot through his prick and into her body. "This is for you," he whispered, flooding her pussy with his spend. "Ohhh Bob," she groaned, feeling the ball of wet heat form in her belly. "Don't ever leave me." ------- It's difficult to sleep on a bus, even in the dark of night. So Bob was already tired before their lovemaking sucked the last reserves of his strength from his body. She could sense that lethargy in him, and when he rolled, and was asleep within minutes, she didn't feel neglected. Their lovemaking had the opposite effect on her. She'd been excited for days, and anticipating this reunion. She hadn't been disappointed in any way, shape, or form. She hopped out of bed, reaching to close her pussy lips. She started for the bathroom, intending to sit down and let him drain out of her, but the thought of that made her decide not to. Instead, she stayed naked, holding his semen inside her with three fingers, while she went to the kitchen and assembled the things she would need to bake with. More than once she thought how strange she must look, capering around in her kitchen, naked, bent slightly with one hand between her legs. Finally she went to the bathroom. Feeling thoroughly foolish, she got a tampon and took it to the living room. She lay back on the couch with her legs up in the air and inserted the white tube. She had waited too long to have this in her, though, and she wasn't going to give it up easily. Then she went back to the kitchen, washed her hands, and baked a cake. For the first time in a long time she felt everything was fine in her life, and that now that she had Bob with her, nothing else could go wrong. She was, of course, mistaken. ------- Chapter 8 Julia was lying on the couch, reading a book when Bob came into the living room. He had retrieved his leg from the bathroom, and it was installed. He was otherwise naked. "Thank goodness," he said when he saw her nudity. "My duffle bag was out here, and I couldn't bear to put on my dirty clothes, but I didn't want you to think I was some kind of nudist either." He grinned. "I have to say I'm delighted to find out you are one, though." Her embarrassment level, at least concerning this man, was almost non-existent any longer. She just smiled, enjoying looking at him naked. "I'm not a nudist," she said. "I just didn't want to chance waking you up by rooting around in my drawers or closet." "Elephants could have stampeded through there and I don't think it would have woke me up," he said. "Are you calling me fat?" she asked, smiling. She was anything but fat. "You shouldn't lie around naked like that," he said. His cock twitched. "Oh? Why Not?" she asked. "Because it will get you raped." "It's not rape if I agree to it," she said. ------- They had both assumed it would take a day or two to get comfortable with each other once he arrived. While there was the odd moment of tension, their hunger for each other drove them through those first few days at a relentless pace. That first day, when he found her lying naked on the couch, with a tampon stuffed in her pussy, was an example of a moment of tension, surrounded by hours of lusty happiness. He had gone to drink in the sight of her body. "Oh no," he moaned, seeing the string coming from her pussy. "Oh!" she chirped. "It's not what you think." "What the heck is it then?" he asked, confused. While her embarrassment level was very low with this man, was almost non-existent, it wasn't completely null and void. She blushed. "I was being silly. I just didn't want you to come out of me." "Are you trying to get pregnant?" he asked, odd and foreign emotions flickering through his brain. "No!" she yipped. "Not at all. My period ended three days ago. I just loved having you in me, that's all." "Wow," he said. His cock lifted, now sagging at a 45 degree angle. "I feel so silly," she moaned. "Take it out," he said softly. "All right," she said, rolling to get up. "No ... right here," he said." Now she got really red. "I can't," she moaned. "Not with you watching." "Then I will," he said. "What?" she said, shocked. Her eyes went round. "I'll take it out," he said softly. His cock rose to stand horizontal to the floor. "That's just weird," she breathed. "It's me you're keeping in," he said. "I'm about to put more of me in you, and I can't do it with that thing in the way." "You are?" she asked, sounding dazed. "Oh yeah," he said. He reached and stroked his cock. In the end she lay, her legs spread, covering her face with both hands as he tenderly pulled the device from her pussy. "I never saw one of these before," he said, laughter in his voice. "At least not like this." "Thank goodness for that!" she yipped, peeking between her fingers. "You shaved," he said, noticing for the first time that all that was left of her pubic hair was a thin line pointing to her pouting pussy lips. "I hoped you'd like that," she moaned. "You planned for me to see it?" "Of course," she said, taking her hands away from her face. "You don't know how hot that makes me feel," he said, leaning down to suckle a nipple. The tampon, actually looking almost unused, lay forgotten on the carpet as they mated again. ------- Because they were like honeymooners, unable to get enough of each other, that first weekend flew by. He had arrived on a Friday and by Monday, when she had to go back to school, he was exhausted again, though pleasantly exhausted. He slept most of the day, which was good because she attacked him when she got home, getting her belly filled before she did anything else. They went out to dinner that night at Glenn's Cafe, in the historic Hotel Frederick. It was pricey, but his bank account was flush with unspent cash, and he wanted to treat her to something she didn't get to do often. It was on the way home that they actually talked about the future in any meaningful way for the first time. "So they believe I'm your sister," she said. "Yup." "And you haven't heard from your real sister?" "I don't even know if she's still alive or not," he said. That made him feel sad. "And what happens if they find out I'm not your sister?" "I don't know," he admitted. "I'm sure they'd be pissed, but I'm on ninety days convalescent leave. Unless the medical board decides I can go back to duty before that." She was silent for a minute or more. "Does that mean you'd go back to Iraq?" Her voice sounded curiously flat. "I don't know," he said. "It all depends on what kind of duty they say I can do. I know there are guys in Iraq with prosthetics." "You can't go back." Now her voice sounded on the verge of tears. "Hey," he said. "My unit is about ready to redeploy back to the states. They'll be here for at least a year. I don't think they'd reassign me. Actually I don't have any idea what's going to happen. They might decide I'm not fit for active duty anymore and kick me out." "But you said there are men over there with legs like yours." "Yeah, but not a lot of them. I never actually saw one. I just heard about them." "Thinking of you leaving makes my stomach hurt," she moaned. She pulled into the parking lot of a grocery store and parked. "I can't drive with tears in my eyes." "I'm not leaving any time soon," he said. "We have time to make plans." "What kind of plans?" she asked. "I don't know," he said, sounding uncomfortable. ------- Their lovemaking that night was subdued. They lay in each other's arms for an hour after going to bed, just whispering in the dark, each trying to think of something to talk about other than their worries. Eventually she sat up. "There's something I've been dreaming about doing," she said. "What?" "This." She leaned over and took him into her mouth. He'd only been half hard, but she soon had him raging. Again she deep throated him. "Where'd you learn to do that?" he gasped. She pulled up slowly, dragging her tight lips along his shaft and playing with the crown before pulling off and swallowing. "Bob," she said. "When I found out you were coming, I practiced with him until I could do it." "Man," he said. She went back down on him, making it clear she was trying to get a mouthful. She did, and swallowed it happily. Then he returned the favor, until he had rejuvenated, at which point he eased into her and rode her almost gently to an orgasm. While she whined, he seeded her, again in that almost lazy way he had discovered of letting his semen flow without even getting winded. ------- Claudia had sometimes felt like she lived in a third world country. Arkansas seemed so remote to her when she first moved there with her new husband, Josh Strangline. The internet had helped, because it was her window into the rest of the world, outside the Ozark Mountains that surrounded her with thick trees and winding roads. Moving to Kansas City had helped, but now there was the opposite problem. Traffic was so thick and fast that she was afraid to drive in it. Josh had no trouble, but if she had to go anywhere farther than a few miles she was sure she'd be lost, never to be found again. It felt safe to stay in her house and take care of little Anthony, but she had other important things to do too. She still had that trapped feeling as she tried to find out where her brother was. She had the number of his unit in Kansas, but when she called there, they just told her the unit was still deployed, and would be for another month. They had phone numbers for his company, in Iraq, but they were strange numbers, that didn't make any sense to her, having too many digits and nothing that looked like an area code. But she had tried everything else she could think of, so finally she tried calling one of those numbers. She punched in the seventeen digits and waited for nothing to happen. It was almost a shock when a perfectly normal whirring sound announced that the phone on the other end was ringing. "Headquarters, Big Red One, Sergeant Johnson, how may I help you sir or ma'am?" came a perfectly normal voice on the phone. Shocked, Claudia almost lost her voice. She couldn't believe she was talking to someone ten thousand miles away. "Is this Iraq?" she gasped. "All day long, Ma'am, for as long as I can remember it seems like," said the voice. "This is an official line." "I'm trying to find my brother," she said. "Ma'am this line is for official use only," said the man. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to-" "Don't you dare fucking hang up on me!" yelled Claudia. "My brother is assigned to your unit and I'm his next of kin and I haven't heard from him in over five fucking months and now my letters are being returned and I want to know where he is this fucking minute!" Sergeant Johnson pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. Nobody had talked to him like that for as long as he could remember. She was obviously worried. That didn't penetrate his shell of protection, raised when the wheels of his transport touched down in Iraq and fastidiously kept raised until he could leave this God forsaken land. What got to him was the fact that she was also obviously a civilian. He hadn't talked to a real live civilian in almost a year, not counting his mother, during the infrequent hurried phone call. He brought the phone back to his ear. "What's the weather like there?" he asked. "What?" The woman wasn't shouting any more. "Tell me what the weather is like wherever you are and I'll try to help you," he said. "You'd better help me anyway you little piss-ant!" she yelled again. "If you don't help me right fucking now I swear I'll write a letter to your ... your ... your Drill Sergeant!" she finished. It was the only thing she could remember Bobby being scared of. Johnson laughed. It was the first time he'd laughed a real belly laugh in months. It felt good. "Tell you what," he said into the phone, when he got his voice under control. "You made me feel good and we wouldn't want my drill sergeant getting all upset now. I don't have the kind of information you want, but I know somebody who probably does. Let me get him on the horn and maybe we can find out about your brother. Okay?" "Please help me," she moaned, almost ready to cry. It was obvious this man in this far away place wasn't intimidated by her. "I've tried everything and nobody will help me." Ten minutes later, Specialist Rhonda Johnson, no relation to Sergeant Johnson, except that they snuck off to screw like crazy every time they got the chance, came back on the phone line to report that Sergeant Hickory had been wounded in action and evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he was currently temporarily assigned to the medical hold company there. "What does that mean?" moaned Claudia. "It means he's alive, ma'am," said Specialist Johnson. "That's really all I can tell you, ma'am. I shouldn't have told you that much without proper clearance." Fifteen minutes after that, Claudia was staring at the plethora of information about WRAMC on the internet, trying to figure out where in the world to start. She clicked the "contact us" link and stared at another page of information. Finally she saw "Army Wounded Soldiers and Family Hotline," clicked on that, and was routed to something called SFAC. ------- "I should get some more condoms," panted Bob, as he lunged into Julia's defenseless pussy. Her legs were spread wide and her knees were up. Over the three weeks since Bob had come to live with her, she'd learned a lot about her own body and what she wanted and liked during sex. It was getting hard to remember a time when she didn't have a beautiful, prodding, spurting penis at her disposal. She was also over feeling like a slut. Now she just loved making love with the man she loved. "I hate them," she panted back. "I should go on the pill." "I thought you said you were allergic to them," he gasped. "My mother was allergic to them," she puffed. "Which is why I have four sisters and three brothers." "So have you ever tried them?" he moaned, very close now. "I never needed them," she whined. "You do now, because I'm about to cum," he groaned. "I needed them a week ago, when I was ovulating," she moaned. "I pulled out," he defended. "Bob, I've been saturated with sperm since you got here," she choked, wrapping her legs around him. Her pussy pulsated and he let out an agonized growl as they climaxed together, her pussy milking him with three weeks of practiced muscular movements, while he fired off staccato blasts of sticky white cum into her belly. They fell limp, entangled, not minding the touch of each other's sweaty body, until they caught their breath. "What if you are pregnant?" he asked quietly. She didn't answer for long enough that tension invaded the room. "I didn't mean to come here and ruin your life," he said. "You haven't ruined my life," she said, breaking her silence. "If anything you've made me feel more alive than I ever did before." "You know what I mean," he said. "Do you love me?" she asked. "You know I do," he said impatiently. "And I love you," she said. "I know that too." "Then let's worry about whether or not I'm pregnant when I know whether or not I'm pregnant," she said. "Marry me," he said suddenly. She sat up in bed, her hair tousled, his sperm running from her pussy. "Ask me some time when you're not trying to get into my panties," she said seriously. "You're not wearing panties," he said. "Ask me at seven minutes after two, tomorrow afternoon," she said. "What?" He frowned. "You'll be teaching then." "Exactly," she said. "I can't just waltz into school and disturb your class just to ask you to marry me," he said. "That's crazy." "Exactly," she said. He stared at her for an entire minute. She melted his heart. He couldn't stand even the thought of being without her. "All you had to do was say no," he said quietly. "Look," she said, exasperated. "This has all happened too fast. I went to find the man I was infatuated with, and a couple of months later I might be pregnant with his child. I can't trust myself to do anything intelligent when it comes to you. You're like a wolf, and I'm like a kitten. I have no chance against you." He opened his mouth to reply but she shushed him and went on. "And it's the same way with you. I know what I do to you. I know how to push every button you have, Bob, and I love pushing them all. This has been the most exciting and amazing thing that ever happened to me. But that doesn't mean I know how to think about marrying you. I've never thought about marriage before, and I know you haven't either. This has been like surf in the ocean that has tumbled us head over heels. We haven't even landed on the beach yet, and until we do, and can catch our breath, I'm not going to answer any question like that." He looked at her for another fifteen seconds while she waited for him to say something. "Are you mad at me for asking?" he asked. "No," she said instantly. "In fact, it made me horny." "You're insatiable," he moaned. "I'm insatiable?" She laughed. "Last night I was grading papers and you dragged me off to bed. The night before that I was mowing the lawn and you mauled me out in the yard. You'd have stripped me bare if I'd have let you. I can't remember the last time I got into the shower alone and stayed that way. I can't find a single one of my bras because you hid them all somewhere. I finally got a sports bra and I put it on when I get to school. I take it off before I leave school too, because if I didn't you'd hide that one too! I haven't touched my vibrator since you got here, and you say I'm insatiable?" "It's not my fault," he said, sounding injured. "I can't resist you. If you weren't so sexy I could leave you alone." He rolled away from her and stood up beside the bed. His penis had a congealed drip of semen hanging from the tip. "Do you want me to go away and leave you alone now?" "No, Bob," she said patiently. "I love you." "Then why are you complaining?" he whined. "Because you made it sound like I'm a nymphomaniac, when in fact you're a Satyr!" she yelled. "Oh," he said. Suddenly he did a little dance, moving in a circle. "What on earth are you doing?" she laughed. "Satyrs dance before they seduce some sweet young thing," he said. "Yeah, right," she giggled. He leapt without warning, seizing her by her shoulders and throwing her down onto the sheets, still damp from their previous romp. She screamed, but wasn't scared. She fought, but not hard, as he pinned her down and began making growling, eating noises as his lips nipped at her neck, shoulder, chest and breasts. He put her arms above her head and held them there with one hand as his other hand probed between her legs and he sucked at her nipples. "Let me go, you beast!" she squealed, but couldn't help laughing. He let go of her wrists, but then covered her with his body, wiggling his left knee between hers as she tried to keep her legs closed, laughing while she did so. His stump slapped down on her shins and she yelped. It got him the room he needed and soon his thigh was rubbing her nearly bald pussy. "You are a Satyr!" she squealed as he got his other knee between hers and ruthlessly pushed her thighs apart. He was hard again, and he lunged at her opening. Three weeks before this, when she was still almost a virgin, it might not have worked. But in those three weeks they had gotten to know each other's body intimately. She tilted her pelvis just so, allowing him to slide into her in a rushing, punishing thrust that would have hurt horribly had she not already been sopping wet and still full of his last ejaculation. But she just let out a whoosh of air as she was filled, and her pussy lunged upwards, automatically trying to get as much penetration as possible. "Asshole," she rasped as her arms went around him. "I love you," he whined as he began fucking her with short strokes. "Satyr," she yelled. "I can't live without you," he panted. "Beast!" she yipped. "Ohhhh Julia, you have to marry me," he moaned, digging deep. "Cum in me again," she whispered in his ear. ------- Chapter 9 "What do you mean he's staying with me?" asked Claudia Strangline. Her level of hostility had gone way down when she first got someone from the Soldier Family Assistance Center on the line. They were very polite. "If my brother was staying with me, would I be calling you to find out where he is and if he was all right?" Her voice rose almost an octave as she delivered the last sentence. "Ma'am, our records show him on convalescent leave at the home of his next of kin. That's you ma'am. You are Claudia Strangline, right?" "Yes," she said helplessly. "I'm his next of kin, but he isn't here." "He's been gone from Walter Reed for almost two weeks," said the woman on the phone. "If he hasn't arrived in Boonville by now, something must have gone wrong." "Boonville? I'm not in Boonville!" said Claudia, exasperated. "Ma'am, I'm reading your address right off his DD Form 93, and it's filled out in his own handwriting. It says you live in Boonville, Missouri." "Boonville?" Claudia thought her head was going to explode. "Give me the address," she said. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Ms Strangline," said the voice, which sounded much less helpful suddenly. "That information is protected by the privacy act." "You can't give me my own address?" asked Claudia, acidly. "Ma'am ... whoever you are ... if you're really his sister you should know your own address." The line went suddenly dead. ------- Claudia hitched up the papoose sling that draped across her front, holding little Tony. She had brought him with her because he was her son, and Bob's nephew, and because she was breast feeding. She had expected it to be difficult to get through the gate at Fort Riley, but nothing could have been simpler. All she had to do was show her driver's license. She didn't even have to say why she had come. It was so easy that she took the chance of asking how to get to post headquarters. She was delighted when the gate guard not only told her how far it was, but gave her a photocopied map with the route and building number on it. She was further surprised to find abundant parking spaces right next to the building she was looking for, identified as Headquarters, Ft. Riley and 1st Infantry Division. But most surprising of all was the response when she told a young man with a single dull brass bar on his collar why she was there, what she had been through so far, that she expected answers, and that she wasn't leaving until she got them. He simply smiled and said someone would be with her in a moment. Then he offered her a comfortable chair and made a telephone call. Ten minutes later a young woman in uniform came to get her and took her to an office. There was a gruff looking man with a little silver hair surrounding an otherwise bald head sitting behind a desk. He rose as she was ushered in. "I'm Command Sergeant Major Beck," he said, smiling and holding out his hand. "Won't you sit down?" "Are you as important as a First Sergeant?" she asked, hesitantly. "Bobby always said if you want something to really happen you have to talk to the First Sergeant." The man smiled. "I'm kind of like the First Sergeant for the whole post," he said. "If I can't help you, I know somebody who can. Why don't you tell me why you're here." So she did. She told him the whole story, about her disastrous pregnancy, and losing touch with Bobby because of it, and how he had no one else, and had been injured and sent to Walter Reed, and somehow someone pretending to be her had spirited him away to Missouri, and how the Army wouldn't help her find him. He listened without asking any questions. When she finally ran down he said "Do you happen to have any identification with you?" Her mouth set, and he held up a hand. "It would help me help you," he said. She handed him her driver's license and Tony began fussing. "I need to feed him," she said apologetically. "By all means, don't let me stop you," said one of the most important and powerful men at Ft. Riley, Kansas. She had chosen this particular papoose rig because she didn't have to take Tony out of it to nurse him. She simply leaned forward, to get a little room to work, and unbuttoned her blouse. A flip on the cap of her nursing bra exposed a nipple and when she leaned back, Anthony latched on and started noisily sucking. The man behind the desk was frozen, poised with the phone halfway to his ear, and she realized he'd watched the whole process. She blushed. Beck came unfrozen and started speaking into the phone. He asked for various people, and then used Bobby's name and rank several times. "No, I don't have a social," he said. "How many Hickories can there be? He's got to be Big Red One. That's who's deployed. No, I don't want you to call me back. I want you to find it now, while I wait." He put his hand over the lower part of the phone. "They're working on it now," he said. "Would you like something to drink?" "I'd kill for a Classic Coke," she said. "No killing necessary," he smiled. He pushed a button on the front of his desk and the girl in uniform popped in through the open door. "Couple of Cokes, Cassie," he said. "You want ice?" he asked Claudia. She nodded and he turned back to the girl. "Me too," he said. She vanished. He became more alert and listened into the phone. "What's the leave address?" he asked. He wrote something down. "Hold one," he said into the phone. He looked at Claudia. "You're right. He's on leave in Boonville, Missouri, listed as the address of one each sister, with your name. I sense a problem here." He went back to the phone. "Look at our file copy of his DD 93. Who's on it? Is that the only name? What address is listed?" He listened and looked at her driver's license again. "Bring me that 93." He listened. "No, I do not want a faxed copy. I want our file copy ... in my hand ... ASAP. In fact, bring the whole personnel file." He hung up. While he had been talking the girl had appeared with two glasses full of ice cubes, and two red cans of Coca Cola. She had opened one and poured it for Claudia. The other she set on Beck's desk, unopened, beside his glass. She disappeared again. Now he opened the can and poured before looking at Claudia. "We'll figure out what happened," he said. "There seems to be a discrepancy between his leave address and your address in Arkansas." "Oh!" she said, wide eyed. "We don't live in Arkansas any more. While I was in the hospital with Tony, here, my husband got a promotion and we had to move to Kansas City. I haven't gotten my license in Kansas yet." "Really," he said, his voice dry. "Actually, I'm rather glad you've been tardy about that, because your license and our copy of his emergency notification card are the only things that are agreeing on anything right now. If your license had your new address on it, things would still be at the preliminary stages." ------- Bob was intelligent enough to know that if this had even a prayer of working well, he needed to go through the bureaucracy. It was for that reason that, when he was stopped by school security, he said he needed to speak with the principal. He'd allowed an hour of extra time, both because he knew there might be delays, and because he had nothing better to do with it. In any event, if he got no cooperation, it would allow him to adapt, improvise and overcome any obstacles on his mission. When asked what the nature of his visit was, he simply said that he was an Iraqi vet, had gotten some Any Soldier mail and wanted to talk to the principal about it. He was mildly surprised to find that the principal was a woman. "Hello," she said, beaming at him. "I'm Judith French. What can I do for you?" He explained about Miss Miller's second grade class, and the letters they'd written. He explained that he'd been injured, and that his traumatic brain injury had robbed him of the memory of the letters themselves. He explained about his recovery. "And now you want to meet the children," said Mrs. French. "Well ... yes ... but that's not actually why I'm here," he admitted. "You said your injury gave you amnesia," she said. "Something like that," he said. "I was told that I wrote to each child at one time or another, but I can't remember that." "And who told you this?" she asked. He started to say "Julia." He got out the first three letters, in fact, before he stopped. "Um ... Miss Miller," he said. "She wrote you another letter?" Mrs. French raised one eyebrow. "She was worried about me when I stopped writing. She sort of came to find me at Walter Reed," he said. He wasn't sure how much to say about events. He didn't know, for example, what Julia's excuse for missing school had been when she came to see him. The last thing he wanted to do was get her in trouble. "So why, exactly, are you here, Sergeant Hickory?" Mrs. French leaned forward. Bob's eyes darted away, but came back immediately. It was do or die, so he did. "I asked her to marry me," he said softly. "She said I had to ask her at seven minutes after two today." "I don't understand," said Mrs. French. "She said it's crazy for me to want to marry her ... that things have happened too quickly since we met. But instead of saying no, she just said I'd have to ask her at seven minutes after two today ... while she's in class." "And she thought you wouldn't do that," said Mrs. French, smiling widely. "Apparently," said Bob, a little uncomfortably. She sat back in her chair. "Suppose you ask her, today, in her classroom ... and she says no." Bob sat there. "I won't give up," he said. "I love her." "Yes, I rather suspect you do, Sergeant," said the woman. She picked up her phone and punched a couple of numbers before speaking. "Tom, could you come in here please?" A man, possibly in his early thirties, came into the door. He looked at Judith, and then at Bob, and then back to Judith. "Tom," she said, smiling, "This is Sergeant Hickory, recently serving in Iraq until he was injured and sent back to the States. I think Sergeant Hickory is what happened to Julia Miller." "Really?" Tom looked very interested. "Sergeant, this is Tom Whittaker, my vice principal, here at David Barton. We have noticed ... shall we say ... a rather stark change in Miss Miller's behavior the last few weeks." She looked at Tom. "Sergeant Hickory is here asking our permission to propose marriage to Julia ... in her classroom." She looked at her watch. "In thirty-nine minutes." Whittaker's eyebrows rose. "Thirty nine minutes?" "It's a long story," said French. "He'll require an escort, of course." At the exact same instant one man said "You mean I can do it?" while the other said "You mean you're going to let him?" Mrs. French laughed. "I wouldn't miss this for all the tea in China." She looked at Bob. "Good luck, Sergeant. I don't think you're going to need it, but I'll wish it to you anyway." ------- Command Sergeant Major Beck leafed through the file while a very nervous man in uniform stood beside him. The man had two black bars on his collar. Beck made a noise in his throat. "An amp with TBI" he said." "I don't know why they didn't send him to Irwin to recover," said the man who had brought the file. "We could have taken care of him right here. Why they cut him loose on con leave is beyond me." Claudia had just returned from changing Tony's diaper. She was rocking him now, trying to get him to go to sleep. "What does all that mean?" she asked. Beck looked up. "Your brother ... and I'm convinced he is your brother ... was wounded in Iraq by an IED. He was evacuated to Walter Reed where, I'm afraid to say, one of his legs had to be amputated." Claudia cried out, and Tony started crying too, feeling his mother's horror and pain. "I'm sorry," said Beck. "There's no good way to impart that kind of information." "But he's alive," she sniffled. "Very much so," said Beck. "The problem is he also has what we call a TBI, traumatic brain injury. Don't get excited. It can sound much worse than it is. They would not have let him go on con leave ... convalescent leave ... unless they thought that was under control. In fact, convalescent leave is one of the things we're trying to treat TBI. Unfortunately, while it's been around for a long time, we still don't know much about what to do about it." "His brain is injured?" moaned Claudia. "You know how football players sometimes get knocked out during a game?" asked Beck. She nodded. "That's a TBI. Your brother suffered the shock wave of a big explosion and it rattled his brain around a bit. That's probably all that is." "But what about this Boonville thing?" she asked. "I don't know anybody in Boonville. I don't think Bobby does either. He never said anything to me about that." "Does he have a girlfriend, maybe?" asked Beck. "If he does, he never told me about her," said Claudia. Beck frowned. "Well, I can think of one thing that might shed some light on the issue." "What?" asked Claudia. "We have the phone number of where he's on leave." He smiled a tight smile. "We'll just call there." ------- Tom led Bob down the hallway. "We knew something was up with her, but she wouldn't say anything to anybody about it," said Tom. "In fact, a couple of the older female teachers predicted she was in love. But we try not to pry into the personal lives of our teachers. Not unless it's affecting their teaching. She's always been one of the good ones, and that part hasn't changed." "That's good," said Bob. "I'd hate for her to fall in love with me and it wreck her teaching career." "Here we are," said Tom. He reached for Bob's arm and stopped him from going in front of the window in the door to the room. "We're kind of early," said Bob. It was two o'clock sharp. "You can't just walk in and blurt out that you want to marry her," said Tom. "I have to introduce you to the kids first, or there will be chaos. She's going to freak out when she sees you." "I guess that's true," said Bob. "Maybe this is a bad idea." "Have faith," said the vice principal. "Besides, there are probably at least thirty people in the office right now, waiting to hear what happens. You can't quit now." "Thirty people?" Bob looked askance. "Judith has probably asked every teacher in the school to turn the class over to the aide and come to the office," Tom explained. "Any minute now she'll throw the switch that activates the intercom from this room to the office. They're going to listen in on everything you say." "Shit," gasped Bob. "A good example of a word you can't use in there," said Tom, calmly smiling. "You've wanted to meet these kids for a long time, right?" "Well sure," said Bob. "I mean Julia says I wanted to. I just wish I could remember more about them." "Fake it," said Tom. "The kids know you, and that's what's important. They'll have lots of questions. Just answer them until I give you the high sign. Then you can pop the question." Bob took a deep breath. "Got it. Let's go." ------- "All I got was an answering machine that said Julia couldn't come to the phone and to leave a message," said Beck, hanging up the phone. "Julia? That doesn't mean anything to me," said Claudia. "We'll call again later," said Beck. "Unless you have to go?" "I told Josh I was going to stay until I got some answers," she said stubbornly. Then she smiled. "Not that you haven't been helpful. You've been wonderful. Thank you. How come nobody else in the Army is willing to help anybody?" she asked. "How come indeed?" asked the Command Sergeant Major of Fort Riley. He turned to the man who had brought Bob's personnel record to the office. "Captain, Mrs. Strangline has driven a long way, and I'm sure she's tired. It's going to be a while before we can try that number again. I think we should find her some guest lodging, at a minimum. What do you think, sir?" "Excellent idea, Sergeant Major. I'll get right on that," said the captain. ------- Julia was in the middle of reading Curious George's First Day of School when the door to her classroom opened and two men walked in. She recognized them both immediately, but the fact that they were together left her speechless. "Pardon us, Miss Miller," said Tom, as the children all looked at him curiously. "I've brought you a surprise visitor. I understand you all wrote letters to..." He looked at a post it in his hand, "Staff Sergeant Robert Hickory, in Iraq." Whittacker took a step back as sound welled up, filling the room. ------- Captain Baldridge went somewhere for about fifteen minutes while Claudia waited in the anteroom of the headquarters building. Upon returning he made belated introductions and drove Claudia to building 470, which had a sign outside identifying it as Hoffman Hall. It was only a short distance from the headquarters building. He showed her a one bedroom apartment and, upon her bemused approval, handed her the key and offered to take her to her car. Once there he told her that CSM Beck would make another call to the leave address of the soldier at five o'clock, and that she was welcome to be there when he did. He then told her where on post restaurants could be found, and left her standing by her car. She was hungry, so she went up the road that Captain Baldridge had said led to Custer Hill. She expected to see a historic site where General Custer had made his last stand. Instead, all she found was what looked like a city made entirely of red brick. Still, she found a Burger King and got something to eat. The place was crawling with soldiers, most of whom looked like kids to her twenty-eight year old eyes. They were unfailingly polite, though, and not nearly as noisy as the teenagers she was familiar with who hung around in malls. There was also something quietly solid about them, something she couldn't quite put her finger on. It felt good to get the papoose sling off of her body for a while, while she ate and played with Anthony. At four-fifty she got in her car to go back down to the headquarters building. The ante room was empty when she got there, but the Command Sergeant Major's door was open. She peeked in and he looked up. "Come in," he said. "Let's give this another try." ------- Once the noise died down, Bob said "Hi! I'm glad to finally get to meet you all, but you have to take turns and raise your hand if you want to speak, okay?" Nearly two dozen little heads nodded. "What are you doing here?" asked Julia, looking shell shocked. "I thought the kids might want to meet him," said Tom. "Who has a question for Sergeant Hickory?" he asked, before she could say another word. Hands shot up all over the room. The first question was "Where have you been? Miss Miller said you were on a secret mission." "Well, I was, sort of. But I got hurt and I had to go to the hospital and stay there for a long time. I just got out of the hospital recently." More hands shot up. "Did you get shot?" asked a little girl with huge round eyes. "No," he said. A boy blurted out: "Did you get blowed up? My uncle got blowed up and he's up in Heaven now." "I'm sorry to hear that," said Bob. "Yeah," sighed the boy. "Let's not talk about me," said Bob. "I've been gone so long I don't know what's happened to you guys. I really want to know how you've been doing and what's going on." A girl held up her hand. "Din't Miss Miller write to you? She likes to write to you. Sometimes she writes letters to you in class while we're reading." "I was kind of moving around, and I didn't get any mail for a long time. I don't even know where the letters you sent me are right now," he said. A boy raised his hand. "I got a puppy! His name is Max and he has really sharp teeth!" Hands shot up all over the room just as Tom tugged his shirt tail and looked up at the clock. It was clear that there would be a long litany of stories from the children about what had been happening in their lives while he was out of touch. "I want to hear all about it from each one of you," he said, "but first there's something I need to do. Can you give me a minute?" They nodded seriously. "See, it's like this," he said. "When I was in Iraq, I was very lonely. And your letters made me feel a lot better. But Miss Miller's letters made me feel really better. They were special, and she's special. And I fell in love with her." "Bob!" gasped Julia. He turned his head toward her. "Be with you in just a second." Then he faced the children again. "And while I was in the hospital, feeling really bad, she came and visited me and I felt wonderful again." "Bob! Don't you dare!" blurted Julia. He raised his eyebrows at the children. "She didn't raise her hand, did she? It's not very polite to interrupt like that, is it?" The children looked shocked that their teacher could have committed so grievous a transgression, after all the instruction she had given them on that subject. "Anyway, I'm in love with your teacher and I want to marry her. Do you think she should marry me?" Bedlam ensued ... in both the classroom and the administrative offices, down the hall. ------- Chapter 10 Julia sat, red-eyed, still sniffling after breaking down in sobs. She had been rushed by tiny people, all telling her not to cry, and that Bob would be nice to her. Somehow she had been required to admit that her tears were of happiness, and that she loved Sergeant Bob too, at which point things began to calm down a little bit. Bob re-established complete order by saying "All right, now I want to hear from each of you what's happened in your life since I stopped writing." As seven-year-olds generally aren't all that sophisticated in terms of ordering their own history, most of them just said a few lines about whatever came to mind first. While this happened another man appeared at the door of the class. He and Tom spoke in whispers and then watched and listened as the children finished telling Bob what was important in their lives at the moment. Tom stepped forward. "What do you say Mr. Zelch here finishes the day for Miss Miller? She and Sergeant Bob have a lot to talk about, if they're going to get married. I think we should give them the rest of the day off so they can get started." He held up a hand as children stirred. "I know Mr. Zelch is a fourth grade teacher, and that this is only second grade, but I think you can handle him. What do you think?" He got shouts of agreement. Julia's eyes shot daggers at both him and Bob, but she pasted a smile on her face. She was fully capable of reading the handwriting on the wall. Outside, though, in the parking lot, was a different matter. "You sneaky, underhanded bastard!" she yelled. He held up both hands, palms out. "Hey, you said seven after two. It's not my fault that the kids were there at that time. You should have thought things through a little more thoroughly." "I didn't think you'd show up in my classroom, you ... you ... you man!" she shouted. "I love you," he said simply. "What else could I do?" "And now I have to say yes!" she yelled, stamping one foot. "Those children will be devastated if I don't!" "I'll be devastated if you don't," he said softly. "It's not fair," she moaned. "All right then," he sighed. "You wait here. I'll go tell the kids I changed my mind and withdrew the offer." He turned and started walking. "Bob!" she screamed. He turned. "You get your ass back here this instant!" He backtracked, careful not to smile. He wasn't worried, really. But if she thought he was making fun of her it could get dicey. "You can't take it back," she said, her teeth firmly clamped closed. "If you don't want to marry me, then of course I can take it back." "You think you're so smart, asking me in front of the kids like that ... making it so I don't have a choice. Well I'll tell you something, smart guy. I'm pregnant. So you have to marry me!" Then she put her hands on her hips and grinned. "There, Mister I'll-just-ambush-her-in-front-of-her-children. How does it feel?" "Pregnant?" His eyes looked like they belonged on an owl. "I used a home pregnancy test in the faculty bathroom this morning before class," she said. "I wasn't going to say anything about it until I was really sure, but you forced my hand, now didn't you." "You're pregnant?" His voice sounded like he might be in the second grade. "The test was positive, and I'm a week late. I've never been late in my life," she said patiently. "With my baby?" "Who else's baby do you think it would be?" she yelled. They were both distracted by the figure of Judith French almost running toward them. She arrived, flushed and panting. "The windows of every room on this side of the school are plastered with children and staff watching you," she gasped. "We can hear what you say when you shout like that, Julia. Please just say yes and take him home." ------- "You're limping," said Julia as they approached her car. She had said "Yes" through gritted teeth, whereupon her principal said "You may now kiss the bride." Bob hauled Julia into his arms and kissed her soundly. She fought at first, but not for long. They could both hear cheering from inside the school. Judith had then shooed them toward Julia's car. "My leg is a little sore," he said. "I decided to walk to school." She stopped and stared at him. "But it's five miles!" "I guess so," he said. "Why didn't you call a taxi?" "I needed time to think. You think I'm doing this impulsively, but it's not like that at all. I know how serious this is. But I love you, and the whole way here all I could think about was how miserable I'd be without you in my life." "Idiot," she muttered, opening her door. "Get in!" she called. "We need to look at your leg." "I'll be fine," he said. "It's just a little sore, that's all." "Let's get you home and get it taken care of," she said. "I'd rather go get some ice cream," he responded. "I suppose you want a pickle too," she said, straight faced. "I'm not into pickles," he said. "I like those little sweet ones, but that's it as far as it goes with pickles." ------- Ice cream turned into an early dinner somehow. There was still enough tension in the air that neither talked about the two elephants that seemed to follow them into every room they went. Slowly, though, the tension faded, and by four both were ready to go home. Back in the house she was all business, telling him to get his pants off. She removed the prosthesis herself. "It's inflamed," she said. "Well, duh." She went and got some Vaseline Intensive Care and spent five minutes working it into his stump. Her hands smoothed the cream up over his knee, but didn't move higher, towards his loose boxers. They were tented, and moved occasionally as his penis stiffened inside them. "You got a squirrel in there?" she asked, looking at his lump. "Actually, it's a Muff Weasel," he said. "They're very loyal pets." "A Muff Weasel," she said, unable to keep from smiling. "They're used to clear tunnels ... you know ... make sure the tunnel is safe." "We could have used him a few weeks ago," said Julia. "Apparently my tunnel wasn't very safe back then." "You said we'd worry about whether or not you were pregnant when you got pregnant," he said. "Are we worried now?" She stared up at him, her hands still moving gently, without thought, over his stump. "I was this morning. I'm not now." "Me neither," he said. "Really?" she asked, her voice suddenly full of passion. "Do you mean that?" "Please marry me," he said softly. "I can't live without you. The baby is just frosting on the cake." "You don't know much about babies if you think they're like frosting," she said. She finally slid her hand into the loose leg of his boxers, and gripped his prick. "This made me pregnant," she whispered. "We hope," he amended. "We do?" She looked thoughtful. "I do." "And if it's a false positive?" she asked. "Will you still want to marry me then?" "I've wanted to marry you ever since you wrote to me." "You can't remember when I wrote to you," she said. "True, but I know I loved you. I've always loved you. I can't conceive of a world in which I didn't love you. I loved you when I was a teenager. I just hadn't met you yet." "Are you trying to get into my panties?" she asked, one eyebrow arched. "Because if that's what you're trying to do, you're going to be successful. That silver tongue of yours is just amazing!" "I'm trying to get you to marry me," he said. "I already said I would." "That was coerced." "Maybe. It's my opinion that I wouldn't have said it if I hadn't meant it." "Why is this so hard for you?" he asked. "Because it scares me half to death!" she blurted. "So much has changed, in so little time. How do we know it's real?" He was quiet for so long she began to feel jumpy. Finally he said something. "All you can do is have faith. I never felt like this about any other woman. That's not just a dream. It's how I feel." "And I want us to be together forever, and happy," she moaned. "Then let's work every day together to make that come true," he said. Her hand squeezed his cock, almost idly. Just as her mind hadn't been on the tenderness with which she massaged cream into his stump, she wasn't thinking about what was in her hand. She just let her love flow through her fingertips. "Yes." "Yes, what?" he asked. "You know what I mean," she said. "Don't be a bigger ass than you already have been today." "Yes, what?" he asked again, patiently. "Yes, I'll marry you," she whispered. "There. Are you happy now?" He smiled. "Are you trying to get into my shorts?" he asked, one eyebrow arched. "Because if that's what you're trying to do, you're going to be successful. That silver tongue of yours is just amazing!" Her eyes filled up, but she smiled as she flowed up into his embrace. Their kisses were tentative at first, tasting each other's lips as if they were tasting fine wine. Passion washed over them, though, and clothing was scattered everywhere as they consummated the agreement to love each other forever, no matter what happened. It was right in the middle of that passionate lovemaking that something did happen. The phone rang. ------- It just so happened that Julia was lying splayed out on the couch, her pregnant pussy full of the cock that had made it pregnant, when the phone which was positioned on the end table rang. She had just had a bone jarring orgasm, and Bob was fucking her with long, leisurely strokes while she caught her breath. It was only because that orgasm had used up most of the nervous energy that had been plaguing her all day long, that she decided to answer the phone. "Don't stop," she said, panting lightly. She reached for the handset and brought it to her ear. "Hello?" The voice on the other end was deep and male. "May I speak with Staff Sergeant Robert Hickory, please?" "Oh!" yipped Julia, both from surprise at the request and because Bob had gone in deep and rotated his loins, delighting her clitty. She held the phone away from her face. "It's for you, Bob!" "Do I look like I'm interested in talking to anybody right now?" he growled, rotating his loins again. "Take a message." She put the phone back to her face. "He's Uhhhh ummm ... busy... Ahhh uhhh ... right now. Can I eeek! take a message?" "Ma'am," drawled the voice on the phone. "Tell him it's Command Sergeant Major Beck, at Fort Riley, Kansas, and that his sister would like to speak with him." It was the look on Julia's face that made Bob stop. She turned white as a ghost, her mouth formed into an "O", her eyes scared. "Command," she repeated. "Sergeant Major" she said as she was coached on the phone. "Beck. Yes. I'll get him." Beck covered the microphone of the phone and spoke to Claudia. "I think we're getting somewhere." Then his attention went back to the phone. "Sergeant Hickory? Command Sergeant Major Beck, here, Headquarters Fort Riley. How's your con leave going?" He paused. "Good, good. We seem to have a slight discrepancy, here, Sergeant. Your leave papers say you're on leave at your sister's house in Boonville, but your sister is sitting in my office, and she lives in Kansas City, not Boonville. In fact, Sergeant, she's never lived in Boonville in her life." He listened. He listened for a long time. Finally he spoke. "Any Soldier, huh. Well you're not just any soldier, Sergeant. You're my soldier, and it's embarrassing when a distraught woman has to come to me to find out where her brother is. Now I understand the TBI issue, but I cannot officially complement you on or endorse your ingenuity in escaping the clutches of Walter Reed. I want this mess cleaned up and straightened out most skosh, do you read me, Sergeant?" Claudia looked like she was going to freak out, and Anthony started to whimper. Beck held his hand over the phone to reassure her. "Don't worry, he's fine. Everything will be fine. You can talk to him in just a second. I just need to make sure he's properly motivated before I sign off." "Oh," said Claudia. She trusted this big, brusque man, so she relaxed. "That's right," he said into the phone again. "I assume I won't be bothered with this matter in the future. I'm going to turn you over to your sister now. Take as long as you need." He handed Claudia the phone and then walked out of the office, closing the door behind him. Specialist Cassie Turnbull was sitting at the desk Lieutenant Walker owned during the day. She was reading a magazine. "Thanks for staying late, Cassie," said the CSM. "When she's finished, just lock up for me." "Got it, Sergeant Major," she said. "That was a nice thing to do for her." "It's my job," he said gruffly. "But only because somebody else didn't do their job. "It's why you get paid the big bucks," said the Specialist, who was all of nineteen years old and had been in the Army two whole years. "You want to know the truth?" asked the grizzled thirty-five year veteran. "I'd rather do that every day than the crap I'm actually responsible for." ------- "Bobby?" Claudia asked tentatively into the phone. "Hi," came a reply that was just as timid. "Oh man!" He didn't explain that her voice had caused a torrent of unrelated images and memories to flood his mind. He suddenly remembered a lot more about the woman he was talking to, but it was all just random information, with no form yet. "Are you all right?" "Yes," he said. "I'm fine, actually. It's hard to explain, but when I heard your voice just now I remembered a lot of things. I'm sorry about not contacting you." "I don't think you could," she said. "There's so much to tell you." "I got hit by an IED," he said. "It caused what they call a TBI and my brain got shook up, I guess. I have trouble remembering some things, and ... well I'm sorry ... but you were one of them. I didn't even remember I had a sister until Julia ... it's really complicated. It's going to take some time to straighten out." "That's all right," said Claudia. "As long as you're all right. Who is Julia?" "Well I thought she was you for a little while. And when the Army thought she was you too, and let me go stay with her to recuperate ... except that she's not you and we're going to get married ... and ... it's really complicated. I wish I could come see you." "Why can't you?" asked Claudia. "I'm just in Kansas City. "I'd come see you except I've dragged poor Anthony around too much already." "Anthony is my brother-in-law?" asked Bob. She laughed. "No, he's your nephew. He's only three months old. A lot has happened with me too, Bobby, and it's complicated too. Can't you come see me?" "Yes," he said instantly. "I'll figure something out. I don't have a car and I probably shouldn't drive anyway." "They said you lost a leg," she choked. "It's not as bad as it sounds," he said. "They gave me a new one and it works really good. I think I'm supposed to take a course on how to drive with it before they'll let me do that." "Oh," said Claudia, relieved. "Let me get your phone number," he said. "You're at Fort Riley?" "I had to come here to find someone to help me. I couldn't find you any other way." "You and Julia can talk all about that," said Bob. "The same thing happened to her." "But who is she, Bobby? You never mentioned you had a girlfriend." "That's a long story too. I'll tell you all about it when I get up there." She gave him her phone number, address and email addy. He promised to get to her as soon as he could, and to keep her posted in the meantime. Then they hung up. ------- Julia had watched Bob speak on the phone. She sensed something was wrong, because his penis, which had been straight as a board, went limp while every other part of his body went rigid. She realized he was standing at attention, and that it was an automatic response to whoever he was talking to. She cringed as she heard him confess everything to this person, apparently without ever thinking of the damage it could do to their brand new fledgling plans for the future. Her heart sank as she realized he was in trouble. She was quite sure that if you lied to the government They wouldn't just blow it off. And yet, he relaxed a little bit as he listened after he spilled his guts. He almost barked out "Yes, Sergeant Major!" and "No, Sergeant Major!" several times and even once he brayed "Thank you, Sergeant Major!" Then his whole demeanor changed and he obviously started a new conversation. She remembered the man on the phone saying that Bob's sister wanted to talk to him, and decided that was now happening. She didn't have to hear the other side of the conversation to understand what was happening, and that Bob would soon go visit his sister and get to know her again. She suspected the Army would want him back now, if only to punish him, and tears built up in her eyes. It was all her fault. If she hadn't gone to that hospital, and pretended to be his sister, and caused him to fall in love with her, none of this would have happened. "I'm sorry," she sobbed as he hung up the phone. "Hey, why are you crying?" he asked, concern written all over his face. "I got you in trouble," she cried. "Maybe," he said. "But maybe not. "What do you mean?" she asked, her sobs subsiding to hiccups. "Command Sergeant Majors don't do what he just did and not tell me where and when to be if he's looking to rake my ass over the coals." "I don't understand," she said. "If I can un-fuck this cluster, I think he's going to ignore me." "Un-fuck what?" "Never mind," he said. "When can we get married?" "What?" "How soon can we get married?" She blinked. Her mind wasn't ready to deal with this issue. "I don't know. I have to tell my parents. There's the wedding to plan. I don't' even know where I want to get married, much less when!" "Let me put it this way," said Bob. "It would probably be a good thing if we were married by the time I get back to Fort Riley." "When will that be?" "I need to do a few things there within a week or two." Her mouth dropped open. "You want to be married within a week or two?" "If possible, yes," he said earnestly. "Are you insane?" she yelled. She was still naked and her breasts jiggled nicely as her body quivered with indignation. "I'm going to take that as a no," he said uneasily. She was so upset that she just spluttered for thirty seconds. Finally she calmed down enough to speak. "It will probably take my mother and me a month just to plan the wedding," she said, her voice tight. "And my sisters will want to throw me a shower. We have to decide where we're going to live. Am I going to sign a contract for next year at this school, or look for a job somewhere else? And what is the Army going to do with you? Where will you be in a month or three months or a year from now? We can't just up and get married, Bob. There are too many things to think about!" "I'm sorry," he said, calmly. "I just thought you'd want to get married before everybody can tell you're pregnant." Her eyes opened wide and her hand came to cover her mouth. "Shit!" she said. "That just sounds so strange coming from you," he said, smiling. "I forgot about that," she moaned. "You're right. I can't walk down the aisle with a big belly. My mother would be mortified!" He frowned. "Plus I admit I'd much rather explain how I ended up here in Boonville if it turns out I can spin it that I came here to get married. I can say I was confused, or didn't think they'd let me come or something like that. They might slap me on the wrist for calling you my sister, but it might not be a career killer." "Ohhhh," she moaned. "What are we gonna do, Bob?" He thought. His face brightened. "I have a sister!" he said. "I have four sisters!" bleated Julia. "Yes, but my sister won't blab to your mother," said Bob. ------- Chapter 11 Claudia had decided to stay the night in the apartment the Army had so graciously offered her. That way she'd be fresh for the drive back in the morning. Plus she could drive around and see what an Army base looked like. And not just any Army base. This was the one her little brother was stationed at. Or would be stationed at when he was well. She didn't quite understand that part yet. Why they had sent him off to Boonville, Missouri was one thing she would like to find out. And why they thought she lived there. But all that could be taken care of later. For the first time in a long time she felt completely at peace. Tony was sucking at a nipple happily. She was relaxed, and so was he. He had handled the trip really well, and that made her happy too. Her cell phone rang. She didn't recognize the number, but answered it anyway. "Hey," came the voice of the man she had spoken to only an hour earlier. "You got a minute?" "Of course I do," she said, excited that he had called her back so soon. "I need some advice, but I have to ask you a couple of questions first." "Okay." "Are we close? I mean were we close, like best buds?" "What an odd thing to ask. I suppose I'd say we were better friends than a lot of brothers and sisters are, but I didn't share all my deepest secrets with you. You'd have blabbed them all over the neighborhood." "Oh," he said. "But that was back then, when we were young." "Yes. When you went away to the Army and I got married, I guess we kind of let things drift apart a little bit." "Would you call yourself judgmental?" he asked. She laughed. "Anybody who is judgmental doesn't think they are," she said. "They just think they have better morals than everybody else. What's going on, Bobby?" So he told her the story of getting the Any Soldier mail, and about Miss Miller, who he soon began calling Julia, and how she had come to try to find him at Walter Reed. He explained the mix-up as to her actual status, and how they fell in love, and how anxious he was to get away from the hospital. Finally he explained that she was pregnant and they were in love and wanted to get married, but not if it was going to embarrass everyone. "So let me get this straight," she said. "My baby brother fell in love with a second grade teacher and got her pregnant and now you want to do the right thing." "I want to marry her," said Bob. "It wouldn't matter if she was pregnant or not. In fact, I asked her to marry me before I found out she was pregnant." "Did she know she was pregnant when you asked her?" asked Claudia. "No. That was last night. She just took the test this morning." "Are you sure you want to do this, Bobby?" asked his very practical sister, who had only the barest bones of the story. "Positive," said Bob firmly. "Well then marry her in a fit of passion, and then have her apologize to her parents and let them throw her a big wingding wedding for family and friends to come to. Then it won't matter if she has to have a custom gown, because everybody will know she already got married months and months ago. It will still be a close call when the baby is born, but lots of babies come a month early these days." "Oh," he said. "Maybe you should just talk about that with Julia." Claudia was reserved at first, but as she talked longer she warmed to the woman on the other end of the phone. What was intended to be a short call for help turned into something that ran Claudia's battery down until she had to plug her phone into the wall. They ended up talking for two hours before everything was settled. By then Claudia had heard much more of the story, from Julia's point of view, and she was no longer concerned that Bobby was leaping off a cliff hoping there was water down below. By then Claudia liked Julia already, and couldn't wait to meet her. ------- "Are you sure you want to do this?" asked Bob nervously. "Will you get it through your thick skull that I want to marry you?" asked an exasperated Julia. "I mean like this, at the courthouse," he said. "I'll take the flack with your mother if you want to wait until the big wedding." "Claudia was right," said Julia. "If we get married now, nobody will know the baby got made too early. My mother can have her big fancy affirmation of our vows. That's why I made you write your vows now. I'm going to marry you, and it doesn't matter whether it's a judge or a minister who does the ceremony. It means just as much to me either way." "I love you," sighed Bob. "And I love you," she said sweetly. "Which is why I'm marrying you, you big lug." Then it was their turn and they were called before the judge. He asked them a few questions, let them say their vows to each other, and pronounced them married in the state of Missouri, by the power vested in him by said state. ------- They waited exactly forty-eight hours before Julia called her parents. Her father answered the phone. "Hi Daddy," she said. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Does anything have to be wrong?" she came back, a little crossly. "I can hear it in your voice," he said. "I always could read you like a book, Julia. It was one of the reasons I never worried about you like I worried about your sisters. I pulled my hair out over Linda and Connie." Julia sighed. "Okay, I'm going to tell you and then I'll tell Mom, because I know you won't yell at me and Mom is going to need your support when I get done." "Shoot, baby girl. I can take it." "I met a man..." "Well that's good. We were beginning to think you might be gay." "Daddy!" she gasped, horrified. "So tell me about him," said her father. "He's very special," she said. "They always are," said her father wryly. "My class wrote him a letter - he was stationed in Iraq at the time - and he wrote back to them ... and to me ... and I fell in love with him, Daddy." "Don't you think you ought to wait until you actually meet him?" asked her father. "He got caught in an ambush and blown up. He lost a leg and they shipped him back to Walter Reed. I went to see him." "Oh my," said her father, suddenly serious. "I fell head over heels for him, Daddy. And he fell in love with me too. They let him leave the hospital to recuperate fully, but he had no place to go, so I let him come to my house." "Uh oh," said her father. "I can see why your mother is going to wig out. Do you really think that was wise sweetheart?" "We thought it would be a chance to get to know each other better," she said. "And you got to know each other really better," suggested her father. "Daddy!" she said with shock in her voice. "I can't believe you'd jump to that conclusion!" "Sweetie, I know human nature, and I know what happens when a man and woman who like each other spend a lot of time in close contact." "So do I," she said primly. "Which is why, when I knew I couldn't resist any longer, we got married." There were forty-five full seconds of silence on the phone, before Julia said "Daddy? Are you still there?" "I'm here," he said. "I'm just trying to figure out a way to make this nuclear explosion into a firecracker. Girl, you are in so much trouble with your mother." "I know, Daddy. But we'll have a big wedding and reaffirm our vows in front of everybody. I promise. I just couldn't wait, Daddy. And I didn't want you to be disappointed in me for being ... bad." "I love you, Julia," said her father. "And for me that means I love you no matter what. I'll try to ride herd on your mother. She had three other weddings. Maybe that got it out of her system. I doubt it, but she'll be happy you're not gay, or lesbian or whatever. So when do we get to meet him?" "When do you want to?" "What date did you get married?" "Two days ago," she said shyly. "And you waited two days to call?" "We were ... busy," she said. He laughed. "I bet you were. To answer your question, I wish I could have met him a month ago. But it's too late for that. I need to try to figure out when your mother will come back to earth after you tell her. I'll call you and invite the two of you up. How does that sound?" "Thank you, Daddy. I love you, Daddy." "I'll go get your mother. I recommend you fold up a tissue and put it between the earpiece and your ear." Julia giggled. "Okay, Daddy. Thank you for being so understanding." "If I tell you a secret, will you swear never to tell your mother?" he asked, his voice low. "How can I promise until I know what the secret is?" "Good point. I knew you were the smart one. Well, if the truth were known, I got into your mother's girdle regularly for a month before we were married." Julia's squeal of horror elicited a laugh from her father. Served the girl right to get all shook up, since she was about to unhinge his wife. ------- The end of school was only three weeks away, and the happy couple were able to put off both Julia's parents and Bob's sister for that long, by explaining that they could stay three or four days if they waited, but only a single Saturday or Sunday if they came before then. Of course the faculty at David Barton School was told about the wedding. When asked why they hadn't been invited, since they lived right there in town, Julia explained that, to mollify her mother, she needed to be able to say that there had been no one else at the ceremony except the judge and the witness supplied by the county, who happened to be the court clerk who processed all the paperwork. She said everyone would be invited to the formal wedding, and that satisfied most. Still her peers threw her a wedding shower, to which Bob was invited. They were all eager to find out more about this mysterious man. He said he'd come if he wasn't the only male there, which is how it developed to be the first known multi-gender wedding shower in school history, perhaps even in Boonville history. The next week Julia drove over to the parking lot of the farm bureau, where they exchanged places. He needed to go to Fort Riley, and he didn't want Julia to have to drive him there. As soon as he got into the driver's seat, he realized how stupid he'd been. There was nothing to use his left leg on. The parking brake was a lever between the seats, and it was an automatic transmission. He had no trouble driving, and even drove back home. He had intended to get a new license in Missouri, even though his car, which was in long term storage at Fort Riley, was licensed in South Dakota. Now he decided to just keep his South Dakota license and not mention to anyone that he had a prosthetic leg. ------- A week before school was out Bob drove Julia's car to Fort Riley. He had no trouble remembering where personnel records were, but when he got there it was another cluster fuck. True, he was permanently assigned to Bravo Company, 101st FSB, 1st Infantry Division, but in theory he was TDY, or on temporary duty with the Medical Hold Company, WRAMC. And so, technically, his marriage records and the corrections needed to his DD Form 93 should be made there, rather than at Fort Riley. What saved the day was that the clerk couldn't even find the soldier's record, and went to report this fact to the Officer in charge of the records management section, 101st FSB rear detachment, who was Captain Charles Baldridge. The file in question was still sitting on his desk, where it had been laid when Baldridge brought it back from CSM Beck's office. When he found out what was going on, Baldridge took it upon himself to ensure that things concerning this record went flawlessly. "Your official records are at Walter Reed," he told SSG Hickory. "However, I will send them certified copies of everything that needs to be done. We'll just fill out a completely new DD 93, which will replace the one at Walter Reed when they get it. Your leave address is the same, except now it is your home address as well. I'll have a certified copy of your marriage license sent to Reed too. You'll need to get your wife to the nearest military installation and get her an ID card and get her into DEERS so she's eligible for medical care. Wait one." He got on the phone and called Bravo Company, where he learned that a crate of personal effects pertaining to one SSG Robert Hickory was in temp storage until such time as SSG Hickory claimed it. Baldridge wrote the information on a piece of scratch paper and handed it to Bob. "Your stuff from Iraq is in storage at this location. You can claim it and take it home with you if you so desire. You might want to remember that, whenever you do report for duty again, you'll need a uniform." "Right," said Bob. "Thanks, Sir. I really appreciate you taking care of me." "No problem," said the Captain. "Good luck." Bob drove by the compound where his car was parked. It was in roughly the middle of the lot, surrounded by three hundred other vehicles of all makes and models, closely packed together. Almost all of these were the cars of single soldiers, deployed in Iraq. He could see his car, but he didn't try to get close to it. He knew the red tape involved in that would be prodigious, and besides, he had to drive his wife's car back home. He did pick up the crate of his personal effects, which was a lot heavier than he anticipated. He had to have help getting it into the back of Julia's car. When he got back to Boonville, he wrestled the crate out of the car and into a corner of the garage. Julia didn't own hammers and crow bars and things like that. But then, he wasn't in a hurry to open something that would probably bring back memories he was just as happy having forgotten. ------- Bob was invited to Miss Miller's end of school party, of course. It was there that the children found out one of his legs was artificial, when Mr. Thompson's class challenged Miss Miller's class to a soccer game. Julia's children all thought they'd have an advantage because Bob was one of them, and in their minds that meant he could play on their side. "I'm not sure that would be fair," he said, as they tried to get him to agree to play. "Besides, the leg I have on today isn't made for that kind of thing." That resulted in questions, and Mr. Thompson's class stood outside waiting for ten minutes as Bob had to explain. The kids all wanted to see his stump, but all he showed them was the artificial leg attached to it. Finally school was out and they were free to travel. Julia wanted to spend the first two days of freedom "preparing to travel." What that meant was staying in bed for as much of both days as was possible. "I won't get to feel you doing this while we're there," panted Julia as Bob lunged into her, making her whole body jiggle with the force of his fuck thrusts. "Why not?" he asked. "I can't wait to fuck you at your parents' house." "Ewwwww," she squealed. "You can't do this there!" "Why not?" "Because they'll know we're doing it!" "Honey, they know we do it anyway." "But they might hear us!" "What if we hear them?" "Ewwwwww. Bob!" "Well they do it too! You're the proof!" "You are so nasty!" she accused. "I'm so horny!" he corrected. And he proved it to her by making it last until she had so many orgasms she begged him to stop. ------- Henry and Margaret Miller lived in a three story, six bedroom house built in 1952 in a sleepy midwestern town that was booming as a product of the baby boom. They were the third owners of the house, and had raised eight children in it. The town had weathered various economic ills that destroyed a lot of other small towns. These days the local economy was based on agriculture and two companies, one which built cabinets for the mass home builder market, and the other which built a dozen different kinds of trailers, both single and dual axle. It was the kind of place where the population had been stable for fifty years, neither growing nor shrinking in any significant way. Hank had spent thirty-five years teaching elementary school in the town. He was the role model for only one of his children and, while he wouldn't admit it out loud, Julia was his favorite daughter. Bob therefore already had an ally when he arrived, because Hank Miller had faith that his favorite daughter wouldn't have picked a loser. When he opened the door, he was instantly crushed in a tight embrace by said daughter. It was an odd moment, and one that would stand out in Hank's memory until he died. That was because, while Julia had four older sisters, all of whom had gone off and fallen in love, requiring they be married off, and while he had hugged them all after their return from honeymoons, whether long or short, this time it was different. Julia had been different than her sisters ... more reserved ... less wild. While Heather and Linda had flaunted their developing sexuality in ways that made his hair gray before its time, and while Mary and Elizabeth had flitted from boy to boy like nervous butterflies, Julia had been a tomboy, having relationships with boys that seemed only platonic. And now he held in his arms, his little girl, who was fully a woman now. He felt guilty as he realized the breasts pressing into his chest were the same ones that, naked, had been pressed into the chest of the man standing behind her, smiling. His mind flitted to other things she had experienced and his groin expressed interest. He felt awful about it, but it was undeniable. His little girl ... his favorite daughter ... was suddenly a sexual being, and it affected him deeply. Oddly, he felt no jealousy towards the man who had made Julia into this sexual being he felt guilty for holding tightly. Perhaps there was some subconscious approval of the man who had seen Julia's potential, while others had passed her by. His initial impression, admittedly based only on a quick look-over and the kind of hand shake he respected, only supported Hank's previously formed impression. "Welcome to the family," he said. "Thank you," said Bob, and his voice held emotion that made Hank's gut tighten. He leaned toward the tall man who looked undeniably military. "Have patience. Your mother-in-law will come around," he said, his voice low. Bob looked slightly alarmed, but then smiled. "Thanks," he said. Margaret Miller's initial attempt at dealing with what she felt of as a "bad situation" was simply to center all her attention on her youngest, and at the moment most wayward daughter. She ignored Bob completely other than a polite "Hello" when Julia introduced him. Then she reminded Julia of how seldom she called her mother, and how infrequently she visited, and how she never wrote at all. She didn't even realize she was attacking her daughter, or that it was all based on severe disappointment that she hadn't been a confidante when Julia experienced ... whatever it was she had experienced at the hands of this interloper, this ambusher, this sneaky man who stole her last daughter away, most likely in the still of night, after plying poor Julia with strong drink. Then Bob's right foot caught on the frayed edge of the old carpet, nailed down to the floor in 1984, and worn out by the feet of ten family members over the years. But it was a wedding present from Margaret's grandmother, and so it had never been replaced. Several of the nails were missing, but everyone in the family had unconsciously adapted to the hazard. His left leg wasn't up to catching his fall, and he realized he was going to hit the floor hard. Having fallen countless times during his stay at Walter Reed, his instincts kicked in. He rolled and landed in the front leaning rest position, or what civilians would call the "up" position while doing pushups. His left leg was draped over the back of his right, and the weight pulled it off his stump. It rolled, the toe of the shoe on that foot pointing in what was horrifyingly the wrong direction. Margaret looked at the obviously broken leg and screamed. Julia said "That damn rug!" Hank, amazed at the reaction time of this young man, and knowing that such a fall couldn't possibly have broken the leg, intuitively realized what had happened. He leaned down. "You need any help getting back up?" "Thanks, but I'm used to it," said Bob, his voice tight. ------- Ten minutes later Bob was sitting on the couch, his leg reattached. Hank was in the process of stapling the carpet to the floor while his wife sobbed hysterically into Julia's shoulder. She was aware that soldiers in Iraq got injured. She was aware they lost limbs. It was impossible not to be aware of those things if you ever accessed any kind of public media. But she'd never met one of those young men. Until this day they had all been theoretical ... not real. One thing she was not aware of was that the sudden sorrow she felt for this young man, who had lost a leg while in the service of his country, was the final turn of the handle to the doorway of catharsis, that allowed all her anger, frustration, and now guilt to rush out in an uncontrollable flood of mental bile and emotional poison. What could have been a stubborn, if not permanent rift between her and her new son-in-law could not withstand the outflow of the vitriol that could have become a cancer on her soul. "I'm so sorreeeeee," she cried, more than once, her teary eyes directed at Bob, who was more uncomfortable than he'd ever been since realizing he'd lost part of his body. He could not know she was talking about much more than his leg. Finally, because he couldn't think of anything else to do, he stood and joined his wife in holding Margaret. She clung to him fiercely with one arm and her mantra changed to "Oh thank you!" Again, he wasn't aware that she was referring to what she perceived of as his forgiveness for all the things he couldn't possibly know she had thought about him. Instead he thought she was thanking him for his service and sacrifice. "It's all right," he murmured into her hair. "Really. I usually get around just fine. No harm done." The shock of his casual acceptance of his infirmity did what nothing else had been able to do. She stopped crying so suddenly that it sounded like she had stopped breathing altogether. She leaned back, the shock clear on her face. "No harm done?" she gasped. "No harm done?" Then she burst into tears of remorse and guilt again. ------- Chapter 12 Eventually "Mother Margaret," as her circle of church friends had dubbed her, got control of her emotions. She had gotten that nickname for a number of reasons. She was a stalwart member of the Presbyterian Church, and her sense of morals was both well developed and iron clad. She wasn't loathe to expound on them when she saw others who needed spiritual guidance. Since we all need spiritual guidance all the time ... well you get the drift. Plus there was the fact that, after having the requisite three children, she had a fourth ... and then a fifth ... and then still more, making it obvious that the Miller's engaged in the Catholic practice of birth control - and poorly at that! What those women would see the next time they met with Mother Margaret was a changed woman. She had been broken. She had felt the real and honest guilt of a sinner, who admits she is a sinner, and knows, deep in her heart there is nothing she can ever do to repair that sin. But she had also received grace, in the forgiving embrace of the man she had judged, judged before she had ever met him, judged in violation of the scriptures she so often quoted. And it was that undeserved grace that had finally penetrated into her soul, lighting up the darkness she hadn't even known was there. After fifty years of stumbling blindly, she finally understood the true meaning of her faith. Because she could do nothing else, she accepted what she perceived of as Bob's forgiveness, and started loving him, instead of hating him. Then she got embarrassed at her outburst. She averted her eyes. Old habits are, after all, hard to break. "Come in, come in," she said, in sudden hostess mode. She remembered she hadn't hugged her daughter yet, and felt bad again. But she was too exhausted emotionally to go through the guilt, so she just hugged Julia and said "I love you." "I love you too, Mom," said Julia, who was a little nonplussed. She had expected her mother to be emotional, but not this emotional. Margaret pushed away and reverted to her role as hostess. "Are you hungry? Thirsty? How was your trip?" "We're fine," said Julia, taking the lead. She had expected to have to fight for Bob, and was ready to do so. "Are you okay?" "I'm fine," said Margaret automatically. "I'm just a silly old woman sometimes." "You're not old," said Julia, also automatically. Then, with shock, her eyes registered the sprinkling of sliver strands mixed in with her mother's normal dark brown hair. "And you're only silly once in a while, so far," said Hank, who realized, more than any of the others, that something important had happened. His attempt at levity was a test, to see how much things had suddenly changed. Margaret looked at her husband, and saw the tentative, hopeful smile there. She felt a rush of gratitude towards him for putting up with her all these years. "I'm working on it," she said. He smiled. "When you figure it out, let me know. I could use some advice myself." ------- The rest of their stay at the Miller home place was mostly stress free with two exceptions. The first was the first night they stayed in Julia's old room, which still had some of her childhood possessions in it. It hadn't exactly remained just as she had left it, but it hadn't exactly been turned into anything else either. Margaret had, before her transformation, been unwilling to prepare a nest for the newlyweds to fornicate in, as she had thought of it then. While her religious doctrine was already being re-evaluated, it would take years to bring into line with what she now understood about forgiveness and grace. When she lied, saying she hadn't had time to prepare the room, Julia brushed it aside and said "Don't worry about it. We can spruce it up ourselves. You took care of me for years. I'm all grown up now." Lest she begin bawling again, Margaret said she'd start on lunch. Hank followed her into the kitchen. So the first night they climbed into Julia's childhood bed, both Bob and Julia were excited. Bob was excited because he was climbing into Julia's childhood bed, where she had slept for years ... before she was a sexual being. It was almost like he was getting to have her as a virgin ... sort of. Men think about things in mysterious ways sometimes. Julia, on the other hand, was excited because she hadn't had to fight for Bob at all. Lunch had been perfectly calm and normal, even though it turned into a four hour event as she and Bob brought them up to date on the events that had conspired to bring the two of them together. Her mother had cried again, several times, in fact, but each time it was easily dealt with by using the corner of a napkin to dab at her eyes. Her father had asked some penetrating questions about the quality of care Bob had received, but no more than that. Then there had been a tour of the town, where she saw that the only thing that had changed was that there was a new convenience store that also had 31 flavors of ice cream. And now she was in bed with her husband, something she had thought she'd have to insist on with her mother. Instead, her mother had simply asked "Do you two need anything else? I'm exhausted and need some sleep." What made it awkward for Julia was when Bob's hands began to roam over her body. "Are you really going to wear that nightgown all night?" he whispered. Julia had slept nude ever since Bob moved into her house." "We can't do anything tonight," she hissed. "Why not? We're married." "They'll hear us!" she scolded, pushing his hand away from her breast. "They're right next door!" "At least kiss me," he complained. She did. It was her undoing, because she loved his kisses, and they invariably inflamed her. Somehow she found herself naked, astride him, his prick deep in her pregnant, though still flat belly. He had said it would be quiet this way, but she suddenly heard the springs of the old bed creaking alarmingly as she bounced, so close to an orgasm that she just couldn't stop. And then it was there, and she fell forward as he humped frantically up into her with rabbit strokes that released his flood of hot semen. ------- "Oh my word," moaned Margaret, as she pulled her pillow over her embarrassed face. "You used to sound like that," said Hank, smiling. His penis was as hard as it had been in years. "Not like that," she moaned. "Better than that," he said, reaching for her. Margaret, though, had more self control than her daughter. Hank eventually got up, went to the bathroom, and masturbated. He was used to it. His wife's sex drive had faded after the children all left. His had not. But masturbation was quick and easy, compared to trying to get Maggie in the mood, so he usually handled things that way. ------- The second moment of stress came on their last night there. Julia, after perceiving no hint of judgment, embarrassment or other sign that their lovemaking had been heard the night before, decided Bob was right. So, on the second night, when he made the bedsprings sing, she didn't worry about it. Nor the third night. Meanwhile what Margaret was hearing through the wall did what Hank wasn't willing to take the time and energy to do. That is, it reawakened in Margaret the dim memory of how good sex felt. She lay there, next to the man who had fathered eight children on her. It was troubling to think about that, because she had borne those children because it was her job to do so. The enjoyment of getting pregnant was somehow dirty, and she had suppressed all that at the time. She hadn't arrived at the conclusion intentionally, or by conscious thought, even, but when it became obvious that her childbearing years were over, her sex drive had declined. Now, though, after being reminded of how good it had felt, and having questioned so many things in the last few days that, before now had just been "truth," the lust she had pushed so firmly into a locked box burst out. As she heard her daughter being "serviced" she rolled toward Hank. He was reading a trashy paperback book. He did so most nights before he turned off the light and went to sleep. "I love you." she said. "I know that," he said, distractedly. "No, I mean I really love you!" she said. Then she did something she hadn't done for more than a decade. She reached to feel his penis through his pajamas. The spark of lust that had burst from within her flared into a minor sun when her hand encountered a penis that was ready to perform what she was beginning to think of as "its intended purpose." ------- Julia, having ridden Bob again, collapsed forward, to lie upon him. She loved this position, because she was in full frontal contact with him. His penis, though softening, was still in her. Their baby, as she thought of it, was sandwiched between them. A sound penetrated her consciousness and she lifted her head. "What's that?" "What's what?" asked Bob, who was drowsy and happy. "I heard something." she said. She sat up. What was clearly a moan came through the wall. "That's mom!" she said in an urgent whisper. "Maybe," said Bob, alert now. Another choking moan, louder now emanated from the wallpaper above their heads. "Something's wrong!" said Julia. She drew her legs up in preparation for getting off of him. Bob reached for her hips and gripped them. "Wait a minute," he said, lifting his head. "Something is wrong!" she insisted, trying to get off of him. "Quiet!" he hissed. His voice sounded so suddenly serious that she did as ordered, and froze. "Hear it?" he whispered. "She's in pain!" Julia said, tensing again. "Not that ... the other," he said. "Listen!" Julia realized there was something else. She cocked her head. The realization of what the rhythmic sound meant flooded into her like she had been deluged by ice water. "Oh no!" she moaned. "They're doing it," he laughed. "No they're not!" she insisted, knowing she was wrong. "Cool," he said. "How can you say that?" she moaned. She put her hands over her ears. ------- Julia walked into the kitchen the next morning, having practiced not showing any hint of judgment, embarrassment or other sign that she had overheard her parents making love the night before. "Morning," she said, her voice carefully cultivated to be morning-cheerful. "Good morning, darling," said her mother, tossing a smile over her shoulder as she tended a frying pan. "You know where everything is. You want bacon and eggs this morning?" "Sure," said Julia, trying to see something ... anything ... that would betray what her mother had been doing just hours ago. There was nothing. It was impossible to tell. It was then that she realized that, if she had heard her mother through the wall ... her mother had heard her through the wall too. Her carefully prepared facade crumbled. She almost ran from the room, but her mother turned around. "I like Bob," she said softly. Suddenly it was Maggie holding Julia, while Julia sobbed out relief and the joy of acceptance. She almost... almost ... told her mother she was pregnant. Instead they talked about the wedding. Julia said she didn't care when it was, but that she didn't know what was going to happen with the Army and the groom, so suggested they just plan things generically until they knew when the groom would be available. ------- Then it was on to visit Claudia. They had bypassed her to get to Julia's parents, because both felt that the parents should be visited first, if only out of respect. And they already expected Claudia's reception of them to be less rocky. Now, as they drove through the beginning of the Flint Hills of Kansas, slowly rising and falling as the interstate followed the contours of the land, both felt at ease. "You haven't had any morning sickness," said Bob suddenly. "Don't jinx me," she said. "I like your parents," he said, changing the subject. "They like you," she sighed, still amazed that was the case. "I'm glad." "You have no concept of what glad feels like," she said firmly. "It's the pale shade of what I felt when I walked into your house the first time, and you invited me in." Tears filled her eyes and she reached to squeeze his knee. "Your aim is miserable, soldier!" he barked. "Adjust up ten degrees!" She leaned closer as she slid her hand higher onto his thigh, stopping just short of his bulge. "Tell you what, Sarge," she drawled. "You find someplace where nobody will see us and I'll show you how good my aim is." "It's called cover and concealment," he said in a false whine. "How often do I have to teach you these things?" "Whatever," she said. "All I know is I have a target for your gun to shoot into." "Oh that is so wrong on so many levels," he sighed. "Why?" she asked, sitting back upright. "Look around," he said. "We're on an interstate. There is no rest stop for forty something miles. And I guarantee the next exit we come to will only lead to a hill, exposed to everybody driving by and every farmer within two miles. And you offer something like that. You're a mean, mean woman Julia Hickory." "That's what you get for knocking me up and making me marry you," she said smugly. "Maybe next time you'll think about it first." "Who says I'll be stupid enough to do this again?" he asked. "If you think I'm going to write to some other teacher, and her kids, and then get hurt so she can come see me, so I can seduce her and knock her up. No sir. I've learned my lesson. I already have a teacher. I'll just knock her up again. "Oh you think so, huh?" she teased him. He looked over at her, his eyes hungry. "Oh, I know so," he said. She looked away from him, out the window. After a minute, she spoke. "You really need to find someplace to stop. If you don't I'm going to have to poke holes in my target with my fingers." Ten minutes later Bob took an exit for a town he'd never heard of. Once they got on the road that crossed over the interstate, he couldn't see anything in either direction. He chose south for no apparent reason and drove until the interstate was out of sight. They could still see no sign of people in any direction. It was the first time they had made love on a blanket, under a brilliant blue sky, with the sun shining down on them. It wouldn't be the last. ------- Julia was impatient as they drove past what could be seen of Fort Riley from Interstater 70, which was basically the airfield and a lot of vehicles parked behind a long chain link fence. She wanted to see what Bob's world was like. But at the same time she was eager to meet his sister, so she agreed that the fort could be explored another day. The stay with Claudia was pleasant from the beginning. Claudia was very curious about Julia, and glad to meet her. Julia listened while the siblings spent hours sitting and talking, catching up, and remembering things together. In the process she learned as much about her husband as if she'd known him for years. By the time the three days were over they were already planning another get together on an undetermined holiday in the future. The only large thing looming over them when they left Claudia's was what the U.S. Army was going to do about Bob. But there were no steps to take to facilitate that. All they could do was wait. Now that Julia was out of school, they spent all day together. Boonville was in a part of Missouri that was rich with history, and there were museums and historical sites galore to explore. Further south, in the Ozarks proper, there were caves and other geological formations to enjoy. They spent a week in Branson, going to shows, shopping, and just soaking in the ambiance of the place. It was the honeymoon they hadn't been able to take. There were days, back home, when they never got dressed. Naked, Julia's abdomen had transformed from concave to convex. She didn't look fat, she just bulged a bit. Bob knew that sooner later he was going to have to return to military life, for at least some period of time, when his leave expired. If the medical review board gave him a discharge, he could come straight back to Boonville and look for a job. If he was returned to duty, it would either be to his unit in Iraq, or the rear detachment at Fort Riley. He was unlikely to be transferred anywhere else because he only had twenty-seven months left on his enlistment. The problem was that when that time came, he would have completed ten years in what he had planned to be a twenty year program. The pay and benefits he could receive if he completed twenty years of active duty were nothing to snort at. The medical care alone could be worth hundreds of dollars per month. It was thinking about his inevitable return to duty of some kind that caused him to think about the crate in the garage. He had become friends with several of the neighbors, most of whom were ten years his elder. Several of them had shops in their garages and he borrowed tools. Julia, knowing he was going to open his past, went with him to the garage. The crate was well sealed, both with serrated nails, and caulking, to keep moisture out as it was shipped by boat back to the U.S. Chips flew as he rammed the flat end of the borrowed crowbar into the seal. Once he got a purchase, he heaved and a foot long gap popped into appearance. The scent of Iraq came out in a wave that almost overpowered him. It was mixture of dust, diesel fumes, gun oil, cooking odors, and sweat. Two of his uniforms had been in his laundry bag, and they had simply been dumped into the crate, still inside the bag. Images flashed through his mind, images of tall soldiers in dirt-colored camouflaged fatigues, wearing helmets and sunglasses, carrying various weapons. Some had video camera lenses mounted on their helmets. All were festooned with various accoutrements; water, extra ammo, first aid pouches, radios and a dozen other things that could be needed on a patrol. He inhaled deeply, and coughed. "Ewwww," said Julia, pinching her nose closed. "Welcome to my world," said Bob, grinning. "That's what my world smells like." "Your world needs a shower," she said, her voice nasal. She let go of her nose, though. Once the crate was open the smells were stronger, but their noses also became desensitized to some degree. He began pulling things out, putting them into two piles. One pile would go in the washer right away. The other pile could be dealt with later. They had packed his candy bars, which astonished him. They had melted and squashed, though, and they went in a third pile, for the trash. Julia, peering over his shoulder, sucked in air. "Our letters!" she squealed. ------- The crate and its military contents were abandoned for a while as the packets of letters were carried into the house. They had formerly been neatly rubber banded together, but were now loose, the rubber in the bands having deteriorated due to time, heat and the chemical composition of the air inside the crate. There was no trace whatsoever of the perfume Julia had put on her fingers and brushed over her later letters to him. But they were all there, both those written by the children, and her personal ones. She put them in order for him and he read them slowly, savoring little bits of them as his memory was refreshed. He fell in love with his wife all over again. Her first letters were tentative, shy, almost retiring or formal. But they became more relaxed, and he felt his libido respond when she said "I wish I could meet you. It would be so much fun to share an ice cream cone with you." She'd been reading each one as he abandoned it for the next. She groaned at the early ones, but then laughed later on, having fun remembering how she felt about the man she could now kiss any time she pleased. He showed her the letter about the ice cream, and then stood to go to the freezer, where there was an almost new carton of mint chocolate chip. He got her naked and smeared ice cream various places, licking it off of her pale body lovingly. She did the same, removing his clothing, kissing each part of him that was revealed, and then getting him sticky and messy. They ended up in the shower together and started making love there. They moved to the bedroom, where he was overcome with emotion and cried, until she distracted him by sucking him back to life and mounting him. "I will always love you," she breathed, looking down at him while she rocked on his stiff prick. "No matter where you are in the world, no matter what you're doing. No matter how hot it is, or how much it stinks, all you have to do is think of me and remember that I love you." Her hands went to her little bulge. "I love our baby too. I'm so glad I was foolish enough to let you do all those things to me." "Foolish?" he grinned. "Unsafe sex is foolish," she said firmly. "At least when you're an innocent young teacher in the presence of a horny wolf." "You're still an innocent young teacher," he said, reaching for her breasts. "And I'm still a horny wolf." She took his left hand and gripped his wedding ring. "The difference is that now you're a tame horny wolf," she sighed. She fell down onto his chest and her lips sought his. "Eat me up, you horny wolf." ------- Chapter 13 Bob's ninety days of con leave seemed to flash by. They had been married only two months when it was time for him to report back to Walter Reed. He still hadn't had time to go through the process of getting his car out of the long term storage lot at Riley, and they had no idea what was going to happen to him, so Julia drove him back to Washington. The first place he went, even before signing in, was to Col Bell's office. The psychiatrist was with a patient, but when Bob explained why he was there, the receptionist told the couple to have a seat in the waiting area and that she'd try to squeeze them in a few minutes. Twenty-five minutes later Bell came to the waiting area. "I can give you five minutes," he said, looking at Bob and then Julia. "I brought something to show you," said Bob, as he and Julia stood up. "And someone to introduce you to." He held out the packet of Any Soldier mail that had been sitting on his lap while they waited. "What's this?" asked the doctor, taking the letters. "It's Any Soldier mail," said Bob. "I got it while I was in country. This is the woman responsible for it. She was named Julia Miller then. But while I was on leave I married her." Bell stared at the young soldier, and then his eyes swiveled to the woman. She didn't look nervous. "Maybe I can manage ten minutes," said Bell. ------- Ten minutes later the phone on Bell's desk made a sustained beeping noise. "I know, I know, I've got an appointment," he said to the phone. "Sir, that's what I wanted to tell you," said a tinny female voice. "Your three o'clock still hasn't shown up yet." "Call me when he does," said Bell, and turned back to the couple sitting in the chairs just across from him. He finished reading one of the letters Julia had received from Bob only a few days before he was injured. Then he looked back at a faded, folded lavender piece of paper that had been in Bob's uniform pocket when it was taken off of him in surgery. It would have been obvious to a blind man that there was intense interest being expressed between these two in their letters. "And you thought she was your sister," he said. "That's my fault," said Julia. "When I first saw him things were crazy. There was this woman there, in uniform, and she asked him if I was his sister and when he said yes ... I let him believe that's who I was. I was excited and relieved and ... confused I guess. So many people had refused to help me find him. I wasn't at my best, mentally. As soon as I had time to think about what was happening I told him the truth." "And what happened then?" asked the doctor, looking at Bob. "It was like this jumble of memories popped into my head, like pages of a book, but loose, and not all the pages, and not in the right order." "But you remembered who Julia Miller was," prompted the doctor. "I remembered that I liked her..." Bob glanced at his wife and lover. "A lot." He frowned. "But I couldn't remember why I liked her so much." "Go on. What happened then?" "We spent two days together, and then, because I was afraid she'd get in trouble if they found out she wasn't really my sister, she went back home to Boonville." "Boonville," repeated Bell, his eyes taking on a faraway look. They cleared. "That's where your ... sister ... is from." He frowned. "That's where I sent you for your leave, as I recall. I remember the name because of its association with Daniel Boone." Bob spoke. "Her ... um ... status has been corrected in the records. And I actually did find my real sister. She had to move to Kansas City while I was deployed and was hospitalized for months. It's complicated. "And you two decided to get married." The doctor's eyebrows rose. "You make it sound so simple," complained Julia. "It wasn't simple at all!" "Good," said the doctor. "I beg your pardon?" said Julia. "Getting married is a serious thing," said Bell. "And for a TBI patient to do so can be a cause of concern. We're still learning things about TBI and the side effects." He stopped. "Speaking of which, how are your headaches?" "I don't have any," said Bob. "Dizziness? Disorientation? Confusion?" "None," said Bob. "Feelings of despair or sadness?" "Since I married Julia I've never been happier in my life." "What about your leg?" asked the doctor. "What about it? It works fine. I walked too far on it one day and the stump got sore, but that's about it." "How are you dealing with the anger of losing it?" asked Bell. Bob blinked. "I don't think I'm angry," he said slowly. "I haven't been angry since I left Walter Reed." "But you were angry while you were here!" Bell pounced. "Sure," said Bob. "I was bored. I couldn't go anywhere, or do anything. I was in limbo and nobody seemed to know I existed. I felt like my life had suddenly stopped, and there was nothing I could do to get it moving again. Yeah, that pissed me off." "Oh," said Bell, almost disappointed. He looked at Julia. "How many times has he yelled at you?" "Once," she said promptly. "I did?" asked Bob, looking at her with his jaw hanging. "Remember, in the guest house here? You asked me what I wanted from you. You yelled at me." "Oh," said Bob. "I didn't yell at you. I was just frustrated." "You definitely yelled at me, darling," she insisted. She looked at Bell. "But never since then. We've only been married two months. Give us time. I'm sure we'll have a fight about something sooner or later." Bell smiled. "Well at least I know you're well adjusted." His face went serious again. "Does he wake up in the night, tense or screaming?" Julia shook her head. "No. I wondered about that myself. I used to watch him sleep ... looking for something like that. I wanted to be able to wake him up right away and be there for him ... you know, in case something like that happened. But he sleeps like a log." Bell sat for a full minute, thinking. He looked at Bob. "How would you feel about going back to your unit?" Julia hissed, but Bell kept his attention on Bob, watching his reaction. He was looking for indications of anger, fear or insecurity. What he saw was a young man torn between wanting to return to what he knew, and was good at, and wanting to stay safely with his new wife. The soldier was easy to read. "No!" said Julia. Bell looked at her then. There was the anger and fear. "Hasn't he sacrificed enough already?" she almost yelled. "My responsibility is to determine whether the soldier is mentally fit to return to duty or not," said Bell. "Your husband's responsibility, once he volunteered to serve, was to complete his term of enlistment and do the best job he could." "What about his responsibility to me?" she asked. "What about his responsibility to our child?" "There are mechanisms in the Army designed to support dependents and see to their needs while the soldier is deployed," said Bell. Bob put his hand on Julia's arm. "Honey," he said, his voice calm. "The colonel is just doing his job. I need to go check in. Then we can talk about things. We should have ... I should have talked about this before ... It will be all right. I know it will. But here isn't the right place to work through things." Bell stood up. "I might add that I am only part of the process. Just because I say he is normal mentally doesn't mean that the medical review board is going to decide he is fit to serve. You need to keep that in mind." "So how much longer is all this going to take before we know something?" asked Julia. "I happen to know that my evaluation is one of the last things they need," said Bell. "I think you can expect a final decision in two or three weeks," said the Colonel. "I can't stay that long," she said. "I have to go back and get ready for school. We didn't know what was going to happen, so I signed a contract for another year." "He'll be taken care of very well," said Bell dismissively. "I'd recommend you go on about your own routine. And there are some pamphlets in the waiting room about TBI and home life issues. It would be a good idea for you to look through them so that if he has any side effects, you won't be ignorant about them." Her cheeks darkened, but Bob was pulling her from the room. When they got into the front office she grumbled "I know that I'm an Army wife now ... but I have to tell you, so far, I don't much like the Army." ------- Julia's opinion about the Army moderated a little after Bob signed in off of leave and informed the clerk he was now married, and that his wife was with him at Walter Reed. She was asked for her military ID card, which they hadn't obtained yet. That led to the couple being sent to Personnel, where their marriage license was requested. Neither of them had thought to bring that with them, but the clerk there simply asked where they had been married, called the Cooper County court house and had a notarized copy faxed to him. Half an hour later Julia had an Army dependent ID card and a quarter pound of pamphlets, memos and brochures explaining how things worked for dependent wives and husbands. This time they got a room at the Mologne House, which was, for all intents and purposes, a hotel on the installation. It was once they were in the room that Julia made Bob sit down on the bed and have the discussion she'd been trying to have since they left the psychiatrist's office. "What are we going to do if they send you back to Iraq?" she asked. "If they send me back, I have to go," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I have just over two years left on this enlistment. I was going to do twenty, but I've only been in ten so far. I hadn't planned on getting married." "Sorry to inconvenience you so," she said, her voice flat and dry. "You know better than that," he said, quite seriously. "I'm not going to re-up when the time comes. I'll go in the reserves instead ... assuming the board says I can stay at all. When I get out I'll use the GI Bill and go to college." "It sounds so simple," she said. "It is, basically." "No it's not, Bob. A month from now you could be back in Iraq, getting yourself killed." "That's not likely," said Bob, sounding more sure of himself than he was. "But it could happen," she insisted. "It's much more likely that I'll be sent back to Ft. Riley, to the rear detachment." "Okay, so let's say that happens. That's almost as bad. You're there and I'm in Boonville, getting more and more pregnant and trying to teach." "You can't get more and more pregnant," he said, smiling. "You're either pregnant or you're not." "You know what I mean!" she snapped. "I wish you could get more pregnant," he said, sounding wistful. "If I could get you pregnant again right now I'd jump at the chance." "You want me to have a litter?" She sounded indignant, but it was just show, because she burst out into laughter. He grinned. "I like the sound of that. You'd be my bitch, and have my litters." She looked outraged, but was suddenly removing her shirt. With practiced ease she reached behind her and undid her bra. She dropped it on the bed and shook her breasts at him. "I don't have enough breasts for a whole litter," she said. "You have enough for me," he husked, and reached for her. When they were naked he put her on her hands and knees, and entered her from behind. He leaned over and cupped her breasts as he began sliding in and out. "You're a sweet little bitch," he whispered at the back of her head. She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes flashing dangerously. "I mean it in a good way," he said weakly. She waited until he stood back up on his knees, and then rolled away from him. "What are you doing?" he complained, his shiny prick bobbing in the air. "You need to be punished for calling me that name," she said. "No I don't," he argued. "It was a term of endearment." He quit complaining when she crawled forward and took him in her mouth. When he was right on the edge she clamped him off, saying she wanted him to lie down. Then she brought him to the edge again, only to stop and deny him his orgasm. She did it twice more before he figured out what was going on and apologized, agony in his voice. Then she finished him with her mouth, gulping down his issue as he appeared to have a seizure. His only mistake, once he'd caught his breath, was to say "You can punish me like that any time you want." She seduced him three more times before they went to sleep, but wouldn't let him in her pussy, always finishing him with her sucking mouth. He wasn't stupid, and apologized again. She hovered over his face, her teeth still connected by strings of white, her lips spermy. She swallowed one last time and started lowering those lips towards his. She didn't lick them. Rather, she moved them together like she was spreading lipstick. He took it like a man, and put all his emotion into the kiss he gave her. When she raised back up to break the kiss, she licked her lips. "Tomorrow you can put that inside me again," she said. Then, wrapped in each other's arms, they slept. ------- The next morning, when Bob climbed on top of her, she laughed. "Are you testing me?" she asked. "No," he groaned, sliding into her. "I just love doing this with you." "Ahhhh," she said, giving him a little hip bump to let him know she loved it too. "The source of all my woes." He pushed in extra hard and watched her breasts jiggle. "Woe is you," he gasped. She laughed, and that made her pussy muscles clench and vibrate. He'd already been primed anyway, and it brought him over the edge. "I'm sorreeeeee," he groaned as he spurted in her. She lay under him, stimulated by what they were doing, but more interested in watching him this time than reaching for her own pleasure. Seeing his face, and feeling the intensity communicated by his body, was thrilling to her in ways she couldn't explain. That he was this excited, just because he was doing this with her, still blew her mind somehow. Quite suddenly her desire for him exploded and she reached to grip his taut butt cheeks, pulling him and getting him to rub in a circle as he emptied in her. By the time he started going soft, she was there. She came so hard that her pussy squeezed him out of her, causing an outcry of anguish to rip from her throat. In that instance she felt like he was being taken from her and the mixture of emotions overwhelmed her until she sobbed uncontrollably. Bob didn't know what to do, so he just held her and stroked her hair. Eventually she calmed. She was too tired to try to explain what had happened, and summed it up by simply saying "I'm going to miss you so much." He knew how she felt, though he didn't show it in the same way. The remaining three days she stayed were like their honeymoon again. They went and did things, but the majority of time was spent in bed, their naked bodies straining together to reaffirm the unity of their bodies and souls. ------- When she got in the car to drive back to Boonville, it was both painful and awkward, because things were very unsettled between them. "I guess I'll see you when I see you," she said. "I'll try to keep you posted," he said. "You'll do better than try," she corrected. "Yes," he said, with no argument. "Take care of yourself." "You take care of yourself," she returned. "Drive carefully," he said. He smiled. "Gotcha. You haven't got a comeback for that one." "You walk carefully," she said, deadpan. Tears were suddenly in her eyes. "I don't want to leave." "I know, baby," he said soothingly. "We'll see each other again soon, one way or another." "I'm holding you to that," she said, wiping her eyes. "You think I can go for more than a month or two without seeing you naked?" he asked, putting what he hoped was an astonished look on his face. "Men!" she barked. "All you think about is one thing." "It's not my fault you're irresistible," he said. "Okay, I'm leaving now," she said, starting the car. "I love you." "I love you too." He wanted to say more, but he knew if he did, she'd delay and the delay was agonizing. So he stepped back from the car and watched her drive away. Then he turned and headed for the Medical Hold Company headquarters, to see the First Sergeant. ------- "I just got back from con leave," said Bob to the top kick. "I got married while I was there." "Good for you," said the man, who didn't have a single happy soldier in his unit. All of them wanted something, and this Staff Sergeant in front of him was no different. "I'm doing fine. The shrink said I can go back to duty." "Good for you," said the senior NCO. "The medical review board will make their decision. When they do we'll let you know." "I was hoping to go on back to my rear detachment now," said Bob. "My unit is due to redeploy in a month, so nobody is going to send me back to Iraq. I'll end up at Riley sooner or later. Why not sooner?" "Because the decision hasn't been made yet," said the man. "We'll let you know as soon as they do. That is all, Sergeant." The dismissal was both curt and final. He tried the offices of the medical review board next. The woman who worked the reception desk was a civilian. Her attitude wasn't quite as curt, but the results were identical. The system plodded on, and he simply had to wait for it to do so. He actually thought about going AWOL. He knew that as long as he returned within thirty days, all that would happen was that he'd lose a stripe. But it was also a career killer and whether he stayed in or went into the reserves, he'd end up on the shitty end of the stick. It was still tempting, because he was quite sure nobody would miss him at all if he just went back home. Unless the review board finished his case and they called for him. And that could happen at any time. He spent the time writing long letters to Julia. They talked every night, so she would already know what was in the letters before he even mailed them, but he wrote them anyway. He spent a lot of time trying to tell her how he felt about her, and about his life, now that she was in it. He wrote poetry, or tried, settling for the knowledge that it was the thought that counted. He was therefore surprised when, only a week later, his squad leader, who he had only seen three times in all the time he'd been at Walter Reed, came to get him. "You need to report to the day room," said the man, who then turned and left in a hurry, as if he had a lot to do. His surprise turned to astonishment when, upon walking in, the clerk handed him a packet of orders. There was a cover sheet, euphemistically known as "clearing papers," even though it was only one page. "You're being medically discharged as a rehab failure. You can appeal this finding if you so desire. Instructions are in your orders and clearing packet. You are authorized travel to your home of record, or other such location as long as it is no further from Walter Reed than your home of record. Do you have a car here?" "No," said Bob, his head spinning. "Clear travel last. They'll book you on the soonest flight they can. Have a good day. What are your questions?" "Rehab failure?" What does that mean?" asked Bob. "Instructions for appealing the finding are in your orders and clearing packet," repeated the bored clerk. The whole sentence was delivered in a monotone. Before Bob left the room the clerk was already busy doing something else. ------- Chapter 14 Bob's clearing papers consisted of a page with twenty-five boxes on it, relating to various different agencies and offices, all of which Bob had to go to, to get a stamp and signature. Of course each agency or office required that he do or have accomplished certain specific tasks before they would give him the stamp and signature. It wasn't unusual for clearing to take as much as a week to complete. In Bob's case, however, clearing such places as the arms room, the library and most of the other offices was easy because he'd had nothing to do with them during his stay. Clearing supply only meant turning in his linens. He found the answer to his question when he tried to clear the Ortho Clinic. He was directed to a male nurse, who looked at him oddly. "Where is your wheel chair?" he asked. "I don't have a wheel chair," said Bob. The nurse flipped through his file. "You missed your last ten appointments. It was just assumed that the prosthetics weren't working out and that you had opted for a chair instead." "I kept all my appointments," said Bob. "How do you think I got this?" He pulled up his pants leg and displayed his walking foot. "It shows in your file that you got that," said the nurse patiently. "But when you didn't come back every two weeks like you were supposed to, we figured you'd chosen the chair. About three percent do." "I didn't know anything about coming here every two weeks," said Bob. "Well, be that as it may, that's SOP, and you weren't here, so the board was told you were a rehab failure." "Obviously that was in error," said Bob. "And why would they put me on three months con leave if I was supposed to show up here every two weeks?" "You were on con leave?" The nurse's eyebrows rose. "For ninety days," said Bob. "I can show you the leave paperwork if you don't believe me." "We didn't know that," said the nurse. "Nobody told us you'd gone on leave or we would have done things differently." "So what happens now?" asked Bob. "I take the leg back and give you a chair," said the nurse. ------- Bob had taken a deep breath, instead of blowing his top. Things were looking up for him, thus far, and he wanted them to continue looking up. He was pretty sure nobody in his right mind would actually take away a vet's leg and make him use a wheelchair. It was then that Bob learned that, basically, the legs he had been given were temporary, just to give him the chance to use them and get his stump used to being used to support him. Had he kept all the appointments, the socket would have been changed every two weeks to match the changes in his stump as it continued to heal and change in shape. What had happened was that the batting in the temporary socket had been soft enough that Bob had simply adjusted to the pressure, thinking that a little pain was normal. He learned further that, once his stump had stabilized, he would have been issued a brand new walking leg, a running leg, a "sports" leg that had a stiffer spring than the running leg, and a leg designed to mimic a real one in appearance. That leg was ostensibly for use when he was in his dress uniform, so that his pants would hang correctly and a standard issue sock could be worn. An added benefit was that the leg had realistic foam molded to it that, if he wore shorts, would appear to be a real leg from more than five or so feet away. The joint between leg and flesh could be covered with what looked like a standard bandage, making the leg look injured, rather than artificial. "So why can't I get the legs anyway?" he asked. "I'm authorized to have them, right?" "Yes, if you'd have made your appointments," said the nurse. "I couldn't make the appointments because I was on authorized convalescent leave," said Bob. "I don't know about that," said the nurse. "All I know is that you didn't make the appointments, so you weren't fitted with the legs." "Could I be fitted with them now?" asked Bob. "If you were still in the system, yes, but you're not, because you've been boarded. Rehab failures are always discharged, and that makes you a civilian." "That will make me a veteran, once it happens," said Bob tersely. "Which it hasn't yet, I might add. And it won't until I clear the ortho clinic." "So, you give me the walking leg and running leg, I'll give you a state of the art wheelchair, and then I can sign your clearing papers," said the nurse. "Not acceptable," said Bob. "Take me to your next higher in the chain." What Bob was referring to was the nurse's supervisor in the chain of command. The way you make a complaint in the Army is to use the chain of command. In theory, if you're not satisfied with how the problem is dealt with, you can go higher and higher in the chain, until you are satisfied. Theoretically, that means you could request to see the commander in chief, but only after you've seen every other soldier in the chain below him. And at each step, you have to be able to articulate why the previous person in the chain could not, or would not solve the problem to your satisfaction. Bob was taken to the Officer In Charge (OIC) of the orthopedic clinic, a Major Bonnewitz. Bob explained what had happened, that he liked the legs he had and was fully mobile with them, and didn't want a wheelchair. "Tell you what," said Bonnewitz. "I'll have the doc take a look at you. If he says the stump is stable, then I'll order you the legs. Once they're fitted, you can go on your merry way." "How long we talking?" asked Bob. "Couple of weeks. Maybe three." "Personnel isn't going to let me take three weeks to clear," said Bob. "I can't wait that long." "Have to," said the OIC. "That's how long it takes." "Why can't I go home and the legs follow?" asked Bob. "Because we can't fit them to you if you and the legs aren't here," said the Major. "Somebody else can fit them to me," said Bob. "Look, we're going the extra mile to accommodate you already. Technically all we're required to give you is a working wheelchair. Take it or leave it, Sergeant." "I came to you as a part of the chain," said Bob. "I'm not satisfied. Who is your next higher in the chain?" Major Bonnewitz wrote a room number on a post it note and handed it to Bob. "Go there," he said. The room number turned out to be the offices of the patient advocate. Every military hospital has a patient advocate, who is normally a civilian, who is an "advocate" for all patients with all problems. Normally the patient advocate takes the complaint, says he (or she) will look into it, and then calls the complainant with the results. WRAMC is large enough that there are multiple patient advocates. Bob got Mr. Jackson, who he only had one question for. "Are you in the chain of command of the ortho clinic?" "No," said the man, smiling. "But I can look into whatever your complaint is." "I'm engaged in using the chain of command for my complaint," said Bob. "If you aren't in it, then I need to find out who I need to see next. That would be Major Bonnewitz's immediate supervisor." "But it's my job to resolve complaints," said the man. "My complaint is that nobody will tell me who is next in the chain of command," said Bob. "Who is that, please?" "Tell me your complaint and I'll get you the answer," insisted Jackson. "My complaint is that no one in this hospital will tell me who Major Bonnewitz's immediate superior is, so I can pursue an issue with the chain of command!" snapped Bob. Long story short, Bob ended up being escorted to the office of Colonel Jeffrey Pratt, the Director Of Clinical Services, where Mr. Jackson tried to torpedo Bob's request, and the Colonel's secretary attempted to help Jackson by saying it would be several days before she could get him in to see LTC Pratt. "That's not timely," said Bob, calmly. "Who is Col Pratt's immediate supervisor, please?" "That would be the hospital commander," said the receptionist frostily, her voice dismissive. "What direction is that?" asked Bob. ------- Apparently nobody had ever used the chain of command all the way up to the hospital commander before. Not a dogface soldier, anyway. And those above Mr. Jackson's position just assumed that Bob would be told to get the hell out and use the system properly, since they were quite sure a General would have nothing to do with a whining Staff Sergeant. That might have been the case prior to 2007. Lieutenant General Carson, however, was well versed in the use of the chain to deal with problems. He simply called Colonel Pratt and ordered him to have time to deal with the complaint, whatever it was, and that if the soldier returned to the general's office, Pratt had better have a damn good reason why he couldn't solve the problem. ------- "What, exactly, do you want me to do?" asked Col Pratt, who had been playing golf and had to leave a two foot birdie putt to hot foot it back to the hospital. "I want the legs to be shipped to the VA hospital in Kansas City," said Bob. "They'll have an ortho department there, and they'll be taking care of me in the future anyway. Why can't they fit them to me? I'm being discharged. I need to find a job, or get into college instead of sitting here twiddling my thumbs." Col Pratt, seeing an easy solution to the issue, said "Why not indeed? You go clear everything else, and I'll make sure that once ortho gets everything they need from you, they'll clear you. Fair enough?" "Thank you, Sir," said Bob, who saluted, even though it wasn't required under the circumstances. ------- Bob broke his promise to keep Julia updated. He called Julia that night, but he didn't tell her of his new status. ------- The Army is a machine. From the day you become part of the machine, you are pretty well told what to do, twenty-four/seven. Even your free time and sleep time are heavily regulated in the beginning. A physical machine runs on the laws of physics. The Army machine runs on regulations, which are sometimes at odds with science. A good example is how it took Bob an hour to clear the arms room at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He was not permanently assigned there, and would have been assigned a weapon only if the United States was under direct attack. Further, Walter Reed would have to have been under attack before patients would have been issued weapons. The weapons in the arms room were only there so that the soldiers who were assigned permanently could take them out once a year and familiarize, or possibly qualify with them. The Military Police had their own armory. So once it was determined that Bob was a patient, common sense would have said that he had no weapon to turn in. Neither would his assigned weapon need to be examined (and possibly cleaned one more time) before he could clear the arms room, because he wouldn't have an assigned weapon. "Clearing papers," said the PFC behind the cage. Bob slid his clearing paper through the slot. "ID card," said the PFC. Bob slid his ID card through the slot. "Go have a seat and I'll call you when I'm done checking," said the Private. "There's nothing to check," said Bob. "I'm a patient. I've never even been here before." "Have to check, Sergeant," said the armorer, who was master of his little empire, at least when he was there alone, like he was now. The armorer began to click keys on a computer keyboard in front of him. He ignored Bob. Twenty minutes later Bob approached the window. "How long does it take to check the computer?" he asked. "I have other tasks to complete too, Sergeant," said the PFC. "You're not issuing weapons," said Bob. "You're not taking them back in." "I'll call you when I'm done, Sergeant. The longer you delay me, the longer it will take." Twenty minutes later Bob hopped to the window, holding his leg. "I'm a patient, Private. When was the last time you issued a patient a weapon ... any patient, Private?" "I have to check," complained the private, looking askance at the leg. "Regulations say I can't sign that saying you don't have a weapon until I'm sure you don't have a weapon." "Do you think I might have a weapon?" asked Bob. "Not one of ours," said the private. "Then sign my clearing papers and I'll leave and you can get back to your other important tasks!" Twenty minutes later the NCOIC came back from his lunch break. Exactly one minute later Bob was on his way out of the arms room with the stamp and signature. ------- He managed to clear everything except ortho and the travel office by three in the afternoon of the second day. When he returned to Ortho he got a chilly reception, but there wasn't much they could do except take their time. The doctor was the exception. When Bob was finally shown in to see him, he examined the stump quickly and efficiently. "Looks really good," said the doctor. "You really went for three months on a loaner leg?" "This leg," said Bob, holding up the one he'd taken off for the exam. "And you didn't have pain?" "I had some," said Bob. "I walked five miles on it one day about a month after I got it. That was a bit much." "I can't even imagine," said the doc. "It always hurts a little bit, but I can live with it." "You don't have to," said the doctor. "A properly fitted leg will be completely painless." "That would be a plus," said Bob. "You did it the hard way, but it's stable. Once your new legs get fitted, if there's any pain, go back and make them correct the fit. I understand you're going to have that done at the VA in Kansas City." "Right, sir." "Just out of curiosity, where are you going to live?" "My wife has a house in Boonville, Missouri," said Bob. "So how come you're not going to the Truman Memorial VA in Columbia?" asked the doctor. "It's only twenty-five miles from Boonville. I've got a good friend who works there." Bob felt his cheeks getting hot. "I guess I didn't know it existed, sir." "You want me to change the location we send the legs to from Kansas City to Columbia?" "I guess that would be the intelligent thing to do," said Bob, chagrined. "I'm glad to see you're intelligent," said the doctor, smiling. "Usually, when a patient goes off on a wild tangent like this, it doesn't work out well. But I think you'll be fine. Just remember: A good fit means no pain." "Will do, sir." All that was left was for them to make a mold of his stump, which they took their sweet time with. He made sure they had Julia's home phone in his file, and that the destination for the legs was the Orthopedics Clinic at the VA hospital in Columbia, Missouri, instead of Kansas City. The nurse asked him if he wanted to depart in a wheel chair and just leave his loaner legs there, so he didn't have to send them back. Bob shot him an unkind look. They gave him a container to ship his loaner legs back in. By the time he left there, it was too late to hit travel and finish clearing. He'd have to wait until the next morning. ------- He called Julia again that night. "I miss you," he said when she answered the phone. "I'm naked," she said, her voice sultry. "Really?" "No," she admitted. "But I've always wanted to say that on the phone to a hot guy." "I'm your man. Git nekkid, woman!" he drawled. "It would just make me hornier than I already am," she said. "What do you have planned for the next few days?" he asked. "I'm getting lessons plans ready. We can't get into the classroom for another week, and school starts the week after that. Why? Can you come home?" "Maybe," he said, carefully. "When?" she asked, excited. "I don't know for sure. I should know something tomorrow. They keep saying I might be able to leave for a while." "How long could you stay?" she asked. "I told them not to let me go if I couldn't stay at least a week," he said, grinning at the phone. "Bob!" she wailed. "Even two or three days would be wonderful, honey! Don't be so stubborn!" "We'll see. Don't count our chickens before they hatch. I'll call you if it works out. I just wondered if you'd be available to pick me up if I could get to an airport near there." "Of course I will!" she said. "Wild horses couldn't keep me away." "I love you, baby," he sighed. "If there is a silver lining to any of this Iraq thing, it's that I met you because of it." They whispered sweet nothings to each other for another ten minutes, and then hung up. ------- The next morning, SSG Robert Hickory was waiting at the travel office when the doors opened. He had sat on the steps, watching various units, groups of soldiers and even individuals out doing PT, running up and down the streets of the 28 acre compound that was America's hospital. He'd done his share of running, but hearing the cadences being called always fired his spirit. Still, he was glad he could sit and watch them run by, instead of being with them. His former life, and the strictures it imposed on him, was already seeping away. The Army had been his life. The Army had almost taken his life. And now he realized there was life after the Army. Clearing travel was anticlimactic. It turned out Columbia Mo. had a regional airport that was served through the Memphis hub. The airport was about twenty miles south of Columbia, which was about twenty-five miles east of Boonville on I-70. He could be walking in the front door an hour after he landed. The opportunity to surprise his wife was too delicious to pass up. ------- He took the two P.M. flight out of Dulles on Delta, and arrived in Memphis three hours later. He had a two hour layover and then boarded a small plane that landed in Columbia at eight-fifty. He found a cab and negotiated the trip all the way to Boonville for a hundred dollars. Then the cabbie saw the glint of metal at his left ankle as he got in. "You carrying a gun?" he asked uneasily. "No, why?" "Thought I saw one in an ankle holster down there," said the man. "Artificial leg," said Bob, pulling his pants leg up. "You a vet?" "Yeah." "That happen in the war?" asked the driver. "Yeah," said Bob. "Fare just got cut by half, then," said the man, putting the cab into motion. "You don't have to do that," said Bob. "Yeah, and you didn't have to go over there." ------- Chapter 15 He had the cabbie let him off a couple of houses down from Julia's. Then he called her. "Hey, gorgeous," he said when she picked up the phone. "Finally!" she yelled. "I've been waiting all day! Why are you calling so late? Can you come home?" "Calm down," he said, trying not to laugh. He was standing on the sidewalk, looking at the front door. "I do get to come home." She squealed and he heard it through the walls of the house, as well as on the phone. "When?" "I'm working on that," said Bob. He stepped up onto the porch. "So ... what are you wearing?" "Who cares what I'm wearing?" she yelled. "I want to know when I get to see you!" "I care what you're wearing. I'm so lonely and horny right now. I can't stand it. I need to be with you now, baby." "Ohhh Bob, honey, don't do this to me right now. I can't take it," she moaned. "Come on, honey," he pleaded. "I need some relief. The next best thing to being there is talking to you ... naked ... and pretending it's your hand instead of mine." "You bastard," she moaned. "Now you've got me dripping wet." "So ... you gonna get naked for me?" "Okay," she said, breathing heavily. "This is weird, Bob. I've never done anything like this before!" "I'm hard as a rock," he said, leaning his head against the front door... his front door now. "Wait a minute," she panted. A few seconds later: "Okay. This just feels so weird." "Would it be weird if I was there, and could see you and touch you?" "Noooo," she whined. "I want that so much, Bob." "Me too," he said. "I can't stand it. I can't wait. I'm coming home now. I have to see you." "Ohh baby," she groaned. "I wish you could. If you were here, I'd make you really happy." Bob pushed the doorbell. He heard the bell ring inside. He pushed it again, like someone who is impatient. "Shit!" she said. "What?" he asked, unable to keep the shit eating grin off his face. "Somebody's at the door," she whispered. He pushed the button again. "Well don't answer it naked," he said. "Of course not! Who could it be at this hour?" "Get rid of him. I was so close." "Where's my robe?" "How should I know?" He almost laughed, but kept himself under control. He pushed the button again, twice in a row. "I'm coming!" he heard her angry voice say. "Me too," he said softly. The porch light went on. "Who is it?" she called through the door. "Special delivery from Walter Reed Hospital," he said, making his voice much higher than normal. The lacy curtains that covered the glass pain in the door parted and her face appeared. He waved. "Hi honey," he said. "I told you I couldn't wait." ------- Women are emotional creatures. A woman can go from shock, to euphoria, to anger, to intense joy, to beating on a man with small fists, to lying limply in his arms while he kisses her, all in the space of thirty seconds, and all while standing in her own front doorway. When she stepped back from him, a thousand questions on her lips, he plucked at the belt of her robe. It fell open, exposing her to anyone who might happen to be driving or walking by at nine-thirty in the evening. "You are naked," he sighed. "How?" She finally distilled the thousand questions into just one. "I wanted to surprise you," he said. "They discharged me. I don't have to go back. I'm home." She broke down then, overwhelmed by what was happening to her. He picked her up off the floor and carried her to the bedroom. He said he'd be right back, and went to get his things off the porch. He closed the door and went back to find her lying limply on the bed, sniffling. He sat down and rested his hand on her bare hip. "I hate you," she said softly. "I love you," he said. His hand slid upwards to cup a breast. "Don't touch me," she said. "You're horrible." He pinched her nipple lightly and stood up, taking off his shirt. "If you think you're going to crawl into my bed, naked, after doing such a despicable thing, you've got another think coming, mister!" she said, a little more forcefully. She still hadn't covered up or moved. He ignored her and got naked. He removed his leg and crawled up on the bed. The way she was lying was almost on one side, with her legs akimbo. He put his right knee between her legs and leaned down to kiss her swollen belly. "Hi there," he said to her stomach. "I missed you too." He started kissing upwards. "Don't you dare," she said, her voice low. She still did not move. While he sucked each nipple gently, she rolled onto her back, but said nothing. He kissed up to her throat and she arched her neck, turning her face away from him. He simply went back down, stopping again briefly at her breasts, and then moving over her belly. Her legs were spread widely enough now that he could lift his left knee and move it between them. "Don't even think about it," she said, her voice rough. Then, as he contemplated her pussy, she lifted her hips, pushing her wet folds into his lips. He ate her pussy with gusto, unable to remember having a better time in his life as her hips twisted and moved. He looked up and saw she had a hand over her mouth, trying not to make any noise. She saw him looking and raised her head. "Prick!" she spat. "I thought you'd never ask," he said, and crawled up. "No!" she said, reaching for him. Her hand pulled him to her slick opening. He entered her slowly, and it took every fiber of his strength to keep from slamming in as hard and deep as he could. Instead, he reveled in the feel of her hot sheath swallowing him, bit by bit, until his pubes ran into wet skin. She couldn't keep a low groan of satisfaction in. With his face directly over his, he stared into her eyes. "I love you," he whispered. "You haven't even kissed me hello," she pouted. Then it got wild, almost violent, as she strained against him, her hands moving to urge him to move this way, or that, using strong, pointed, sharp nails. Now it was the feel of her hot skin rubbing against him that threatened to suddenly paralyze him. He couldn't get enough. He wished he could enter her body and live within her, like their baby was doing at this second. Orgasm wasn't the goal now ... only the feel of their union, and the knowledge that they were one being. She was on a different page, and had an orgasm that sounded like it was killing her. She clung to him, and kept moving, obviously intent on either extending the pleasure, or going for another one. He knew what to do, and crushed her to the bed, grinding against her as she gasped and panted her joy. Finally, ten minutes later, he had the quietest, sneakiest, most stingingly sweet orgasm as his penis snuck a load of semen into her now relaxed pussy. He collapsed, all the tension of months of fear and pain gone from his body. He rolled to keep from crushing her and she clung to him like a leech. "I forgive you," she whispered, and then kissed his cheek. ------- They had three days before she had to go to school to get her classroom ready for the children. The first day of it was a rather abbreviated third honeymoon, as she got used to the idea that everything had changed, and that the vast majority of her fears and concerns were no longer salient. The next morning Julia got out of bed and, still naked, went to the bathroom to take a shower and brush her teeth. She planned on getting something to eat. If her lazy husband joined her, fine. If not, he'd just have to call on reserves of energy when she returned to bed. Her pussy tingled at the very thought of what she planned on doing with him ... all day if possible. As she dried off, however, the now plainly visible pooch of her belly shone back at her from the mirror over the sink. She stopped to smooth her hands over it. In a dress or shirt she simply looked a little plump, but only in that region. She knew that would change dramatically as the semester proceeded, and that, by the end of it, she would most likely be waddling around, her back aching. It was then that it occurred to her that the stabilization of Bob's status had also solved another problem. She and her mother could now plan a wedding! Her hands stopped, almost protectively covering the slight swelling under them. She loved this baby already. Sometimes she talked to it out loud, even though she knew it was silly. But her mother was not as likely to have such benevolent feelings about it ... for multiple reasons. First there was the inevitable gossip potential when the bride walked down the aisle pregnant. Never mind that this bride was already married and had been for months. Minds would still go to that place in which they thought about young people doing naughty things before they should have. She couldn't blame them for that, since that was exactly what had happened. The fact that she could argue that she got pregnant ON her wedding night wouldn't stop the whispers. The second problem was that, while all of Julia's sisters had gone off and gotten married, they had also gone off and had careers. Not one of them had produced a child, which meant Julia was the daughter who was going to make her mother into a grandmother. Julia was the one who would make Margaret Miller into an old woman, whether she wanted to be one or not. Julia was the reason Mother Margaret's peers and cohorts would stop calling her Mother Margaret, and start calling her Granny, or Grandma or whatever. Their last meeting had been tumultuous, but had ended well, much better than Julia could have hoped for. The next one was likely to start the same way the last one had, with her mother having a conniption fit. It was unlikely to end happily, though. And the longer Julia waited, the larger the problem was going to grow ... literally. Breakfast was forgotten. Julia went to the bed and poked her husband. "Get up," she said tersely. "We have to go see my parents." ------- It was Maggie who opened the door this time. Julia had called ahead and, in an effort to set the scene as positively as possible, she told her mother the good news that Bob had been discharged, and wasn't going back to Iraq or anywhere else. "We can plan the wedding now," she said hopefully. What Julia was unaware of, and would only learn years in the future, was that a mother knows her children, and can hear things in their voices that the children aren't even aware is there. Maggie had known something was bothering Julia when she hung up. So, when the couple arrived, after a six hour drive, she was just happy to see them, as opposed to full of ideas and plans to float with her daughter about the wedding. "Hank is at work," she said, hugging her daughter and then Bob. "So, you're out of the Army," she said, her hands on Bob's shoulders. "Yes, ma'am," he said. "And what does that mean?" she asked. "What will you do now?" "I think I'll go to college," he said. "The University of Missouri at Columbia has a good program for teachers. I'm in love with a teacher and I like kids. I thought I might give teaching a shot." "That's wonderful," said Maggie, smiling widely. She glanced at Julia, who was frowning slightly, and looked distracted. "You don't agree, dear?" Julia jerked and looked at her mother. "What? Oh. His college plans. I think it's great. I think he'll make a good teacher." "Why don't you just get it over with and tell me what's bothering you, dear?" said her mother. "Come on into the house. Whatever it is, I'm sure we can deal with it." Julia's apprehension grew ... visibly ... at least to her mother. "What makes you think something is bothering me," she said. "I've never planned a wedding before. That's all." Maggie turned to Bob and winked. "Pray that your children are like Julia was," she said. "She was never a good liar. I could always tell when she was trying to hide something. It's very handy when they're little." Bob smiled, but only weakly. That was the first point at which a zing of fear shot up Maggie's spine. "What's wrong?" she asked, completely serious now. "Don't tell me you two have had a spat." "No," said Julia, who was suddenly tired. She remembered now how her mother had always been able to worm things out of her, no torture or threats required. The woman was uncanny. "There may be a problem with the wedding." She added "That's all," in a hopeless attempt at sounding hopeful. Margaret blinked. "What could possibly cause a problem with that? We haven't even planned it yet!" It was Julia's hands going to her belly in the classic form of protection that said it all. Maggie's eyes went round as saucers. "You're pregnant?" she gasped. Julia nodded miserably. She was then surprised by her mother's response. "Wait! How do you know? I don't trust those home preganacy test thingies. They give false positives. Have you been to a doctor?" For answer Julia simply raised the hem of her T shirt, exposing her gently rounded belly. Maggie sucked in air, her eyes still wide. "Oh my," she squeaked. Julia watched her mother's eyes, which went from that rounded belly to her daughter's face, and then back down, where they stared. When they came back up tears were threatening to spill down her cheeks. Julia drew breath to say "I'm sorry, Mommy!" but she never got the chance. Quite suddenly Maggie's body burst into movement. Her arms enveloped Julia and crushed her in an embrace. Her voice made strange honking noises until she finally got out "I'm so happy for you, darling!" Suddenly the two women were jumping up and down, as if they were tied together in a three-legged race. Then, just as suddenly Maggie stopped them and pushed back, holding her daughter's arms in a tight grip. Her eyes narrowed. "Unless I miss my guess, you've known about this for weeks ... maybe months! Why did you wait until now to tell me?" Julia had tears of her own in her eyes. They had been manufactured and put into place as she prepared to apologize to her mother. "I didn't know how to tell you," she moaned. Maggie blinked several times. "You silly girl. You say 'I'm pregnant, mom, ' and then we celebrate!" "Is it a celebration?" asked Julia, who was very confused by her mother's reception of this news. Maybe her mother hadn't thought it out yet, about how this could affect the wedding." Maggie threw her hands up into the air. "Of course it's a celebration! I'm finally going to be a grandmother! I can finally spoil somebody else's child and then send them home to mommy and daddy. I can learn to knit! I get to watch my baby blossom! You get to go through everything you put me through! Of course it's a celebration!" She looked suddenly stricken. "Unless you don't want children," she whispered. A look of agony came over her face. "No!" Julia and Bob said at the same time. "We love this baby," Julia went on. Her hands were back over her belly. "Well then what's the fuss about?" asked Maggie. Another frown came over her face. "Is there a problem? Has the doctor said there's something wrong?" "No!" said Julia, looking shocked. "It's just that unless we have the wedding right away ... like in the next week or two ... it's going to be pretty obvious that..." She let her voice drop to nothing. "You mean you'll look like you swallowed a basketball," said Maggie. The corners of her mouth rose. Julia was more than surprised now. She was astonished. She couldn't wrap her mind around what was happening. This woman looked like her mother, but wasn't acting anything like her mother. "People will think..." said Julia, haltingly. Maggie laughed. "Oh pish posh. Who cares what people think? You're married. Your father will be beside himself. He worshipped me when I got big and bulky." She leaned closer to her daughter and whispered "He has a thing for pregnant women. He won't admit it, but he does." She leaned back and her voice went back to normal. "He'll bust a gut, grinning from ear to ear, walking you down the aisle. He won't want to give you away!" "Mom!" said Julia, beyond astonished now. Maggie turned to Bob and launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck. "Thank you!" she wailed. "It was my pleasure," said Bob. To be fair, it was an automatic response. When Maggie pulled back from him, her eyes wide again, and he blushed and said "I mean you're welcome," she laughed. Then she danced in a circle, at which point Julia was reminded of Bob dancing in a circle when he was imitating a satyr. That was what broke her. More correctly that was what broke the tension inside her. Laughter brayed from her lips, at which point she felt like she wasn't allowed to laugh, and the possibility of control over her emotions snapped. She blubbered with relief and, again, the two women were wrapped in a cleansing embrace of catharsis. This time it was the daughter who was cleansed. Finally she pushed her mother away. "I'm so glad you're my mother," she hiccuped. ------- Epilogue Maggie hummed as she rearranged the flowers on one side of where the bride and groom would stand. They didn't really need rearranging, but she was full of nervous energy and had to occupy her hands with something. The ceremony was due to begin in two hours, and she was quite sure she'd be a mess by then if she didn't keep busy. She would have gone to the bride's dressing room, but the bride wasn't even there yet, and probably wouldn't be for another hour. She was getting her hair and nails done, no doubt relaxing in a comfortable chair while her mother worried about everything being perfect. She wandered down to the hall where the reception would be held. The tables were gorgeous. She saw Hank and two of his friends playing cards at one of the tables close to the kitchen. She started to warn them not to mess the table up, but held her tongue. An hour later Julia arrived, her dress safely secured in the dry cleaner's plastic bag. Bob was carrying a box with her shoes and other things in it. He was already dressed in his tux, and she worried that the box might leave a mark on it. She hurried towards them to relieve him of the box. Julia stopped. "Mother," she said, her voice firm. "I love you. You know that. But Bob is going to help me get dressed. You need to be out here to greet the guests." "Oh," said Maggie, obviously dejected. "Of course." "Don't be like that," said Julia, smiling. "You got to choose the dress. Bob gets to put it on me." Maggie's cheeks were suddenly tinted pink. She habitually thought of her youngest daughter as her little girl, even though that little girl was going to give Maggie her first granddaughter in only a little over a month. "All right then," she said. Julia smiled. "I think I saw the limo coming down the street. You could be a sweetheart and intercept them, because they'll probably want to help me too." She glanced at Bob. "And I have all the help I need." The look on her face made Maggie think of her own early married days, when Hank was always after her ... and she had loved it. She had a sudden vivid image of Julia's sisters rushing through the door of the bride's dressing room and finding Julia and her husband engaged in something other than dressing the bride. "Good idea," said Maggie, and hurried away to meet her other daughters. She saw the limo through a window, already disgorging well dressed people. George, who had married Heather, her eldest, had offered a limo to the happy couple. When he found out they had to return home right after the ceremony, he decided that every wedding needed a limo, so he hired it for all of Julia's brothers and sisters to arrive at the ceremony in. That would also allow them all to drink freely at the reception as well, since it would deliver them back to their homes or hotels. The girls, as sisters will do, had already separated themselves into a group, while their husbands formed their own gaggle by default. Julia's brothers herded their wives towards the front doors of the church. Maggie went to intercept her daughters, since they were more likely to make a nuisance of themselves. They were invariably noisy when they got together like this. "I've been waiting for you," she announced, her voice firm and matronly. "Let's get you seated before you get your gowns mussed." Mary rolled her eyes. "Always our mother," she sighed. Elizabeth took her mother's arm. "You look tired, Mom. I think it's you who needs to sit down and rest." "Nonsense," said Maggie. "I just need to keep you girls out of trouble. A mother's job never ends." "Uh oh," groaned Heather. "I smell another lecture coming about how we're wasting the best, most fertile years of our lives." "Nah," said Linda. "Jules got us off the hook for a while." Maggie sniffed. "This time next year I'll probably still only have one grandbaby." ------- In the bride's dressing room, Julia pushed her sensible cotton panties while she lifted a foot. It was awkward to bend forward these days. She paused, standing naked, knowing that Bob wanted to look at her. He did, in fact, make appreciative sounds in his throat. "Too bad it takes me so long to get into this monkey suit," he said. "Yes ... it is," she murmured, looking at him through lowered lashes. She did what she had made a habit of doing every time he saw her like this. She cupped her gravid belly. "Look what you did to me." She had the pout down perfectly now. "I know," he said, grinning, full of pride. He had that look down perfectly too. "You'd better dress me now," she sighed. She reclined while he started with the stockings. Standing, she helped with the garter belt, which had been altered to fit a shape it was never intended to fit. The lacy bra was next. He took his time, making many adjustments before he fastened it. She giggled as he fondled her now heavy breasts. She stood, lifting first one foot and then the other as he held the panties that matched the bra. When he slid them up her legs, he said "Uh oh." "I was afraid of that," she said, looking down. She couldn't see, but she could feel that the waistband of the panties wasn't up to the task. They only came so high, and her belly made them slide down, making an uncomfortable band just above her mons. "Leave them off," she said. "Really?" She laughed at the tone of his voice. "You're such a man," she sighed. "I know you love it when I don't have panties on." "I love it more when you don't have anything on," he said. "My dress, please," she said, ignoring him. She held her arms up, protecting her hairdo as he carefully lowered the dress over her head, the lavender folds of cloth settling into place smoothly. It fit her like a glove. The lines framed and enhanced her bulge, rather than trying vainly to hide or diminish it. His fingers fastened the back and she turned to look in the mirror. "You're beautiful," he said. "You're biased," she responded. "I'm an expert," he said firmly. "Don't argue with me." "Shoes, please," she said sweetly. She sat and offered him a stockinged foot. He slid the shoe on and she raised the other foot. But when that shoe was installed, he spread her legs and raised the skirt of her dress. He stared at her pussy. "Bob," she said, warning in her voice. He leaned forward, and her hands went to his head to push him away, but he was too strong. His lips sucked at her fleshy folds, and his tongue flipped at her clit. "Bob!" she moaned. "Don't do this to meeee. Please, honey!" He relented then, and backed up, licking his lips. He looked at her face. "You always look more alive and exciting or something when you're a little turned on," he said, proud he had enhanced the makeup she had spent an hour putting on. "That's all well and good," she said, standing up. "But while normally I think you look better that way..." She pointed one polished nail at the front of his tux pants... "I don't think this is the appropriate time for you to be on display." He looked down to see his prick straining against the pants, making an obvious tent. He looked at his watch. He grinned. "We have time," he said. Her eyes widened. "Bob! No!" "Turn around," he said, reaching for her. "Just bend over and rest your hands on the arm of the settee. I'll be careful. I promise." As he positioned her, she looked over her shoulder at him. "If you mess up my dress, I'll tell everybody how it got that way!" she warned. He sighed as he slid into her heat from behind. "Sweetie, I have a feeling that when they see you they're going to know what we've been doing." ------- Maggie sat in the middle of her children. Her sons had ensconced themselves behind her, while her daughters were flanking her. Heather was reading through the program, which started with the information that the happy couple had been married in May when, due to the groom's military status at the time, a formal wedding was impossible to arrange. The program went on to say that the couple were expecting their first child. That was all there was about the wedding and pregnancy. The rest was about what Julia and Bob were doing, and what the future held for them, as well as what this formal ceremony was reaffirming and celebrating. The music suddenly started. There were no bridesmaids, or groomsmen, no flower girl or ring bearer. Bob simply walked in from one side and stood by the minister who was officiating. After the prelude, the traditional bride's entry song began and everyone stood and turned. Hank was bursting with pride. It was obvious, as he strolled slowly down the aisle, escorting his very pregnant daughter to her groom. Mary leaned toward Elizabeth and, in a whisper that carried much farther than she intended, said: "I still can't believe that Jules went and let some soldier get her pregnant." Maggie leaned over and, in a normal voice, chastised her daughter. "Oh, no," she said. "He's not just any soldier." She had to rub at her eyes. "Not any more." ------- The End ------- Posted: 2010-09-20 Last Modified: 2011-02-05 / 06:46:47 pm ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------