previously:

The four of us wait on the porch until Sis drives away, with Tony asleep in the passenger seat. Back inside, we turn on the news and catch the wrap up. Mom turns to another channel which is just beginning their evening news, so we’re treated to their particular slant on the latest disasters afflicting a weary world. They somehow forget to mention the Fickle Finger of Fate bearing down on Earth from somewhere in outer space, which is about to touch down on me once more.

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Admin Note: Originally published on BigCloset TopShelf by T D Aldoennetti on Thu, 2008/12/04 - 4:12am, Air Force Sweetheart -- TacPzlSolGp Chapter 33 is revised and reposted on Mon, 2010/01/04 - 01:46 PM. ~Sephrena

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Que Será Será:

 

Chapter 33

 

The next morning I get dressed, having discovered the night before that I didn’t pack a swimsuit. Who swims in the winter with three or more feet of snow still on the ground? Besides, all the pools are drained to prevent freezing water from cracking them. Nor, I discover, did I pack any lighter clothing. Oh well.

We make our way to the airport, finding that the roads have not quite recovered from the freezing temperatures of the night before. We slip to a halt at the terminal and that same porter carries my things inside to the airline counter. Mom and I bid each other our usual tearful farewell and I promise to call and let her know my room number and phone. I also promise to call at least every other night so she won’t send out an armed patrol to find me.

Checking at the counter with my voucher, I receive my tickets in exchange, my luggage is banded for the destination ‘SAN’ and I’m off to the waiting area, not envying Mom in her attempts to make her way home again. Chains help, but there just isn’t anything like good old dry pavement. Happy Too and Sneezy rode along, so I hope they behave going back. They are remarkably well behaved, but knowing Mom, they’d better be. She would have them doing clean up for a month if they did anything stupid. What? Well, it worked with us, why not them?

They announce that my plane is boarding, so we all shuffle into the airplane. My seat is on the aisle. That’s okay for this part of the flight, as we’ll touch down quickly at Denver where I change aircraft. I’ll get a window seat on the next one. I’m probably halfway to Denver by the time Mom gets home. My next port of call, my apologies to the Navy, is Los Angeles. There I again change airplanes for my final hop into San Diego. Los Angeles was warm, somewhere in the mid 60s or low 70s.

My hop into San Diego goes about the same as that from Cheyenne to Denver, but in a slightly larger aircraft. It’s just as warm as it was in Los Angeles. There’s an intermittent light breeze here, which makes the air seem cooler as it wavers past. If it’s not windy at the beach, it might be fun. Finally my luggage catches up to me and it, I, and a porter go out to the waiting taxis. Wow, seven of them. I give my destination to the driver who looks at me like I’m nuts.

“Lady, if you want to go out that far it’ll cost about $20. You could stay here in town and save yourself a lot of money.”

I tell him I’m certain and off we go. After all, I did pay $133 for a week’s stay, and I intend to get every penny’s worth. After what seems like forever, we arrive and I get to see ‘my’ hotel. It’s newer construction, two stories, and spread out from edge to edge on its lot, completely blocking my view of the ocean. The driver unloads my luggage and I pay and tip him. He thanks me, piles into his car and is off once again. I begin the ritual of moving my luggage into the lobby. I see no bell boys, so they must be off somewhere. I go through check-in and receive a key for a downstairs room. The manager is nice enough and answers my questions, looking at me a little strangely when I ask where I may purchase a swimsuit.

“You planning on going in the ocean? It’s mighty cold this time of year.”

I ask what the temperature is right now, learning that it in the low sixties, but on a warm day it might reach sixty-five degrees.

Thinking about the temperatures back home, ten to thirty degrees, and below freezing until spring, I tell him, “I think that might be nice for a change. Where’s the store?”

He says, “Just down the street, two blocks and it’s on your left. You can easily walk there.”

I thank him and ask for a bellhop to assist with the luggage. He comes out from behind the counter pulling a cart with him and helps me take my luggage to my room. I guess there are no bellhops.

“Most people come here with just one case.”

This is a very strange hotel. I give him a dollar tip and he acts surprised and then thanks me. Once in my room, I find it’s quite nice, even though the manager is a little strange. I change to something cooler after hanging most of my clothes.

About an hour after I checked in, I’m out and searching for that store.

His idea of two blocks and mine are not quite the same. One block here is like four at home. I am beginning to understand why Californians love their cars. I am likely to learn the neighborhood grocery is three miles away. Speaking of groceries, now that I have a swimsuit, I ask about nearby restaurants, only to learn that there aren’t any ‘nearby’ restaurants, unless you have a car. There’s a little café, which is open from 6am to 6pm, a ‘block’ down the street in the opposite direction of the swimsuit store. The closest restaurant is “up the hill into La Jolla, maybe two miles.”

So much for self-sufficiency. I miss walking three blocks to our little corner market.

I find the café, which actually is quite nice. Ordering the only thing on their menu which seems to approximate supper, I feel a twinge of apprehension when I think what this little place might do to it.

I’m surprised, though, and I enjoy my meal, leaving nearly half, not because it isn’t good, but because the portions are so large. I go to pay at the register and find, after the tip, that it’s only $3.89, including tax, for quite a lot of food. I check their posted menu to see what they have for breakfast and the hours they serve it.

Anything on the menu is served all day except the main dishes of lunch and supper which are only available after 1100. I ask if they ever offer anything else and find that they have a limited selection due to the lack of qualified help, since they’re a little out of the way, so no one considers such a small establishment worthwhile. There are better career opportunities elsewhere, and the crowds and tips are better. I ask if they’d be interested in a couple of new lunch/supper dishes and they say, “Possibly.”

I offer to prepare one to show it to them but I don’t have a health certificate, so I just write out the recipes including the ones for the quick cake and for the salad.

I walk back to my hotel, where I enter my room and try on my new bathing suit. It looks luscious. California is obviously the bathing suit Mecca. If the weather continues like this, then tomorrow after breakfast I’m going in. That’s when I remember I have no bathing cap. Oh well.

I call Mom and we talk for twenty minutes. I give her the number of my room, and the direct phone number, as well as the front desk number again, and she says that she’ll write everything down in one spot before we hang up.

The bed is good, not wonderful, but better than average. I suppose that comes from bulk purchasing. Better quality at the price of regular.

The morning comes around, after my false start at two thirty since I’m still on Eastern time, with bright sunshine beginning to poke its way over the horizon.

Looks like it will be a beautiful day for the beach. I get dressed and walk out past the manager, who is looking at everyone like he expects them to steal the ashtrays, and head on over to the café to order breakfast. I am looking around, as I wait for the few minutes before the waitress/owner (It’s a Mom & Pop café) brings coffee, when I spot some quick cakes in the case on the end of the counter, which also supports the multi-carafe coffee maker plus a cake and pie case, napkins, and customer flatware. Just then she comes back with coffee.

“What do you think of the quick cakes? I notice you have some out today.”

“The quick…. Oh, sorry. I didn’t recognize you. So many people come through here each day it’s hard to remember them. We made a small batch when we went home last night. They’re almost sinful. Once people start to taste them we may have difficulty keeping them on the shelf. We’re only charging sixty cents, even though they taste like a dollar. Thanks. We are going to try one of the entrées tonight, and perhaps introduce it soon.”

I smile and nod my head in acknowledgment.

After a wonderful breakfast, I pay my $2.86 plus tip and return once more to my room. After glancing out my window at the weather and the beach, I change to my swimsuit and grab a room towel. I take my key and make my way down to the beach. The water is a little chilly, but might warm up a bit later, now that the sun’s been up a couple of hours. I wade in and find that I enjoy it, despite the chill. The waves are only twelve to eighteen inches in height by the time they reach me and I feel the pull of the surf on my legs as it rushes in and out.

I should have brought a book along, so I could read on the beach while I listen to the waves and the few seagulls. I’ll do that tomorrow. Back on the beach I lay on my towel and soak in some sun turning over every ten minutes or so to prevent a burn.

The girls at work will be envious. I’ll do this each day so my tan is obvious when I go back. I’m enjoying myself, my own private beach.

After an hour or so I again go into the water, this time to swim a little. Salt water and waves are a bit different from a pool. After swimming down to the marker and back to the one at the other end I return to my towel and dry off a bit before wrapping it around my waist and walking back to my room, the sand oozing between my toes. When I reach the sidewalk, I brush off the sand as best I can and go on to my room. Once there, I enter into the bathroom and strip, placing my suit in the sink with cool fresh water while I pamper myself with the luxury of a warm shower and shampoo.

My shower leaves me refreshed and my skin tingles as I dry myself with a thick terrycloth bath sheet. I use a smaller towel to wrap up my hair to dry before returning to the main room to find my brush. I put on a pair of panties and walk back to the bathroom mirror to dry and brush my hair. Now I cleanse my suit and then hang it in the shower to drip dry. That was fun. I think I’ll do it every day. Randolf will be jeal… Forget him…! I blink back the tears threatening to spill from my lower eyelids.

After a few seconds, I feel calm enough to rummage through my suitcases to pick out a fresh outfit and collect my novel. I dress and plunk myself on the bed with the pillows piled up behind my back and begin reading where I last left off. Too bad novels aren’t more like reality. Maybe they should have unhappy endings once in a while. Of course, no one would buy them if they were too much like real life; why pay for what you get for free? Reality…. It’s overrated. Happy endings…? Much better. I like it when the girl gets the guy and they all live happily ever after, even if it doesn’t really work out that way often enough.

Sorry, I’m a girl and we like romance. Especially the successful and wonderful forever kind of romance. Once again I walk to the café for an early supper and note the quick cakes are gone. A few slices of various cakes and pies are present but the dessert category has almost been depleted. I order the same thing I had yesterday afternoon and another cup of coffee.

I’m sitting there, drinking my coffee and staring out the window watching the cars driving through the intersection, when something tugs on my ponytail.

A man’s voice says, “Hi, Linda. What are you do…? Oh. Sorry…. I thought you were my girlfriend.”

I turn to see a young man who’s obviously flustered. He blushes bright red as he backs up and then makes his way to another table as I give him a scowl that says, ‘Try that again, buster, and I’ll belt you one.’ I take my time with my supper and glance over to see him in animated conversation with a number of other young adults. Probably from some high school or college around here. They get up and leave after having inhaled their food and he apologizes again as they pass by, going to pay their way out. I decide to forgive him in absentia. People do make mistakes.

Vacation only comes once a year, so I decide to snatch up what looks like the only remaining slice of a lovely Boston Creme Pie. Once it arrives, I sample it with pleasant anticipation. Just like everything else in my little café, it’s delicious. Too bad they don’t have a larger place and some help. They could make a fortune. I pay my bail and go back to my room to check the TV for something to watch before I start reading again. To my surprise, I find a movie just beginning that looks like it might be interesting, The Manchurian Candidate, which I’d missed when it was in the theaters, so I pile up my pillows again and lean back on my bed with the remote by my side, watching the show. I don’t usually like Frank Sinatra movies, but he’s better in this one than I’ve ever seen him before. Before I know it, the movie’s over and another is starting, an oldie starring Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire.

What is it with these movies? For some reason, Vivien Leigh is the one who really gets to me. ‘I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.’ Geez, don’t we all? Don’t we all…? Pretty soon it’s ten o’clock and ‘Stella’ has become part of my vocabulary.

The two shows were part of the ‘Wednesday Night Showcase.’ They must have some pretty good staff picking out the movies. Back home, they probably would have had a couple of clunkers like Plan 9 from Outer Space or Jail Bait and then signed off for the night, after playing the Star Spangled Banner, of course. I could use something like that each evening. That way, I could save my novel for the beach. Sleep finally claims me, or so I think, because I wake up in the middle of the night and the TV screen has nothing but snow on it, and I didn’t hear the Star Spangled Banner.

I find the remote, turn off the TV on the second try, and roll over and go to sleep with a little more formality.

-o~O~o-

In practically no time, I’m blinking sleep out of my eyes and I stumble out of bed to begin the new day. After the necessaries, I’m starting to feel like an old hand as I stroll down the road to my café. There must be a storm somewhere out in the Pacific, because the surf is louder than I’ve heard it so far. Every once in a while, I hear a tremendous ‘Whump!’ above the rhythmic susurration of the waves as they roll towards shore and stumble on the land.

When I walk into the café, I see more than a dozen quick cakes in the pastry case, with more over in the case holding the pies and cakes. They must be a good seller.

The owner brings the coffee pot with her as she walks over to my table to take my order, so I’m able to fortify myself with a sip of hot coffee before I place my order for about half as much ham as I’d had the day before to accompany my breakfast eggs. Everything is great. I wish I had the money to invest in getting them into a larger place and better location. Then again, they are the only place around here, so maybe they don’t do too badly. After I finish and pay my bill, I stroll back to change to my swimsuit.

Nine o’clock finds me on the beach again, reading, or trying to. Just off to the edge of the bluff, I can see salt spray fly up into the air as a bigger wave than usual dashes itself against the rocks that partially protect the hotel’s private beach from the full onslaught of the waves. I roll over about every five pages to keep my tan even and prevent burning until finally deciding to hit the water.

I abandon my book on my towel and walk down toward the surf line. It’s a little more daunting than it was yesterday. Instead of little waves, there are big ones, or they seem big to me, three to four feet and boisterous, where they’d been tame before. Gathering my courage, I plunge into the surf and dive under an onrushing roller before I’m out in the calm water again and swim toward one of my markers.

Even though it’s relatively calm, there’s a lot more movement in the water, and I have to exert myself just to stay near the buoy. After catching my breath, I swim three laps back and forth between the markers, but I’m exhausted and getting cold by the time I decide it’s time to head back towards shore. Funny, the waves, which had been so clearly visible from the beach, are harder to see out here, and I hesitate several times before I commit myself to going in over the back of a wave, which promptly tumbles me in several interesting directions before unceremoniously dumping me on the sand beneath a rush of salt water going the other way. Geez! That hurt! I’ve skinned one knee and an elbow, but am otherwise still in one piece as I hobble back up the sloping beach towards my towel. I’m very glad the locals think that it’s too cold to bother with the beach, because at least I was spared the indignity of an audience for my clumsy exit from the water. I’ll have to remind myself never to take up body surfing. There seems to be sand everywhere now, including places I’d vastly prefer to be sand-free.

Well, that was fun, but I think I’ll go up and take a shower now, and maybe see if I packed any Bactine.

-o~O~o-

I make it back to my room safely and shower once again, carefully inspecting myself for damage before I turn to my swimsuit and spend some time rinsing the sand out of all the clever places the makers of the suit installed to trap the gritty remnants of rocks that had lost their own battles with the waves. Belatedly, I realize that I hadn’t been nearly as bright about this as I’d imagined; I could have had more than bruises, and should have had someone with me. I blink away tears again. Where did that come from?

-o~O~o-

Finally, the rituals of caring are over, my hair is almost dry, my lovely swimsuit is washed clean of sand and salt water, still drying in the shower. It’s almost one o’clock and I’m still limping. What did Blanche say last night? ‘I need kindness now.’

I’m considering lounging around in my panties and bra for the rest of the afternoon but decide that, with my luck, the hotel would catch fire and I’d have to run out into the street half naked, so I get dressed, just in case. Somehow, I can’t find my romance novel, even after looking everywhere. Eventually, I figure out that I must have left it on the beach, but don’t feel up to going outside. Having missed its chance at me, the whole Pacific Ocean came in and ate up my romance, so I’ll never find out if the heroine finds True Love at last. Yeah, right. I know how these things end. The Fickle Finger of Fate delivers her wandering boy back into her arms, all is forgiven, and larks sing as they sail together off into the sunset. But here I am, alone in a hotel room, tired and still a little sore, and it’s going on four at the end of an imperfect day. ‘Fiddle-dee-dee!’ as Scarlett O’Hara would say. ‘Fiddle-dee-dee!’

Just then, there’s a knock at the door. I figure it’s someone who found the wrong room, so I look in the mirror — to be sure that my head is still on straight — and open the door, prepared to set them right.

It’s Randolf.

The first words out of his mouth are, “Hi, Princess.”

I don’t know what to say, so naturally I say something stupid. Why spoil a perfect record? “Go away. I don’t want to talk to you. How did you find me?”

“I convinced General Pendleton to send me, instead of an enlisted flunky, so we could talk and I could explain what happened and why I didn’t make it back to talk with you. He sent me first to your Mother’s in Wyoming, since she wouldn’t tell either of us anything, and after seeing your new orders, and after hearing me explain myself and apologize for a couple of hours, she gave me this address and said you should call her when I arrive.”

“Really. New orders, huh? I’ve heard that story before. Go away.” I shut the door in his face and lock it. It’s a lie, of course. I haven’t heard that story before, but why spoil my chance at the stupid hall of fame?

Randolf, the persistent fool, doesn’t give up. He shouts through the door, “If you don’t believe me, then call your Father. It was his men who found me and pulled my car from the snowbank.”

I open the door again. “Snowbank. What was it doing in a snowbank? Where did you go when you left and wouldn’t talk to me? Home to commune with your dead wife?”

“Aww, Lucy, that was a low blow. No. I got about a block down the road before I decided to go back and talk with you. That’s why I ended up over an embankment and down into about ten feet of snow. They didn’t find me until the next day. By then you’d gone. I was in such a hurry that I hit a patch of black ice and lost control as I turned around. The car slid over the side of that little embankment down at the end of the street and into about twelve or fifteen feet of piled snow. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to kill the engine and lights to save the battery. No one would have been out to hear or see the car until morning. Call your Father, he’ll confirm where they found me and my car. I started to try and dig myself out and discovered the snow was pretty deep. It just kept coming in through the window whenever I’d clear a little opening, so I figured out that digging out on my own, however quixotic, wasn’t my best plan. I’m surprised anyone heard the horn when I started blowing it about 0600. Look, I even hurt my head when I crashed.” He bent over and took off his cap to show me a bandage over part of his forehead. And someone has shaved off a big chunk of his hair! Geez! I liked that hair.

I’m sceptical, but more willing to listen. “All right, come on in. I’ll give you the benefit of a doubt for the moment. Put your suitcase over there. I’ll call Father and ask him.”

“Could you wait until I have some food? I haven’t eaten since last night. By the way, that steak meal you fixed was pretty good.”

“Mom still had some? I thought Tony and Sis would have taken most of it.”

“Yeah… plenty. She warmed some for each of us and let me taste the bread too. You’re a good cook. Who’s Tony? I suppose Sis is your sister?”

Brilliant deduction, Sherlock. “Thanks. If you hadn’t been so wrapped up with your wife you might have been able to find out just how good a cook I am before this. You say you’re hungry. So am I. How about we go to this little café down the street and have supper then come back and I’ll call Father to check out your story. And yes, Tony is Janet’s husband and Janet is my older sister.”

“Fine with me. As soon as you talk to him, then we have be on our way back home.”

“It can wait until morning,” I say, irritated.

“That’s not what the orders say. The moment, and he stressed ‘the moment’ I find you, we are to return immediately. We even have authorization to charter a plane for the return.”

“You’re kidding. Let me see those orders.”

He opens his suitcase and pulls out a bundle of papers. I read them and my vacation flies out the window.

“What’s happening that’s so all-fired important?”

“I don’t know, but it has global implications and it’s something you’ve dealt with before. Some new intelligence group is trying to handle it. Your father wants you to go and put in your two cents worth. That’s all I know.”

“Wonderful. That’s enough. What happens if you don’t find me before tomorrow?”

“Then we must return tomorrow. I’m supposed to tell you to call him the moment I find you.”

“Let’s go eat. It can wait at least that long and long enough for you to tell me about ‘Claire’ and how she is going to continue to permeate our lives if I decide to continue seeing you. I don’t care if your explanation takes all night; I won’t share you with a phantom.”

We go to my favorite café and have supper. He eats the one remaining quick cake and compliments them on it.

“Thank her,” she points at me, “She gave us the recipe.”

He looks at me like he’s never seen a cook before.

He pays our way out and we return to my room.

Now he is on the ‘hot seat’ and begins his explanation with first meeting his wife and on and on finally reaching that fateful night in Berlin.

He continues eventually arriving at this afternoon having told me repeatedly how much I mean to him. I really don’t know what to make of it. I mean the world to him until Claire appears again. I do know one thing — I can’t live in the house where he and Claire had their lives together, and I tell him so.

“We can move,” he assures me. “We can find a new house, any one you like and we can afford. Maybe a place a bit smaller than the one your folks are living in, but with enough land that we can have dogs. I could sell the present property and we could use that as a pretty good deposit. Maybe it would be enough to allow us to purchase a larger place so when we make General we won’t need to trade up.”

We stay in my room sitting side by side on the bed discussing plans of our future together for most of the night including my cooking, our work, our ages (he was born in ’38 and I was born in ’42 — almost perfect), the dangers he finds himself in from time to time and my own fears about those dangers, and finally, the extremely touchy subject of my origins.

I begin my explanation of volunteering for the program, leaving out the details of my pre-army involvement with being a young girl, and going into my passing the test and the first changes in my records then the complete changes, with a new serial number and all, after a portion of the assignment flopped. The nature of my surgeries and the original sexual organs within me. The possibility, however remote, that a fertilized egg could be implanted and I might become pregnant. I tell him of my recovery time and the creation of the TacPzlSolGp and the moniker they tagged me with.

He smiles and says, “That fits. It goes well with my code name.”

“Which is?” I ask him.

“Houdini. I always seem to make it out of tight spots.”

I then continue my tale with my subsequent near death experience at the hands of Jeremy, my ‘husband,’ the hospitalization, the loss of two ribs and months of recovery from my injuries. I leave out my own missions behind enemy lines, of course. A girl has to have some secrets, especially State secrets that would land her in prison if she revealed them. I imagine Randolf has a few of those too.

He continues to listen patiently, except he can’t help interjecting occasional comments like ‘I don’t believe it!’ or ‘This is amazing!’ plus a few others which leave me worried, because I don’t understand his reactions at all.

I wrap up my autobiography with, “From this point on, you pretty much know the rest, because we began to work together off and on.”

He looks at me, shaking his head in wonder, “So you’re the one.”

His comment confuses me completely.

“Lucy, I helped to plan the mission concept which resulted in your transformation. I had no idea that you were the one selected. This is incredible. You’re absolutely terrific.”

I’m completely at a loss. I have no idea if ‘absolutely terrific’ is a good thing or bad.

He tells me that he thinks what I did was very brave. He’d known that it would take a lot of courage for someone to become someone else entirely in order to serve your country, but that seemed to be their best chance of achieving certain important goals. The one thing he hadn’t foreseen was that their screening process would turn up a ‘real girl’ with some sort of genetic anomaly, but it makes perfect sense to him, for some reason, which is more than it ever had for me. He’s glad that I became Lucy and that he met me.

Now we tackle Claire.

This issue is not so easily resolved. He can’t forget her as easily as I’d thought he could. She was his first love, as he was hers, and they had a bond which was so great that they almost knew what the other was thinking, not to mention (and he doesn’t mention) her being a heroine who died in the service of her country. I start to feel a little small. Okay, a lot small.

If I’d had a real husband, someone who loved me, someone I’d loved with all my heart, if I’d died behind enemy lines in Vietnam, would I want my husband to forget me? Wouldn’t my grave deserve flowers on Veteran’s Day? I start to cry. Maybe she took the bullet that was meant for my Randolf. Maybe she knew it, in that final moment of clarity people talk about, maybe she had a glimpse of me and was happy that the man she loved would find love again, that he would heal and be whole and happy. By now I’m sobbing, and Randolph doesn’t understand, of course, but I’m starting to love Claire too. We have a bond, a little like the bond which continues to develop between Randolf and me now. We both love the same man. He’ll never completely forget her, of course, and I don’t want him to, not any more, because it would make him less of a man, because it would betray the sweetness of his memories of her, and I couldn’t be with a man who was so shallow and uncaring.

But he can’t hold her in his arms, nor can she give him the children he deserves, nor kiss him when he’s weary, nor move forward with him into the future here on Earth, so I have to do that for both of us, and if we meet in Heaven, we’ll meet as sister wives and friends, dear friends, bound together by our mutual love for our sweet Randolf.

Randolph is floundering, as men do when confronted with women’s powerful emotions. “Lucy. When all I had were the memories of Claire they were very strong, because that was all I had. Now I have memories of you….”

I hold my fingers to his lips. I say, “Randolf, it’s alright. I’ve been stupid. I thought that you had to get over Claire, but it turns out that it was me. I had to get over Claire, get over comparing myself to her perfection and her sacrifice. I don’t know where she’s buried, but when you’re ready to share her with me, if you’re ready, I’d be proud to go with you to offer flowers and my love, your love, for her sweet memory and her sacrifice as a courageous soldier and a patriot. My jealousies may surface again; I’m deeply unsure at times of my own worth as a woman, because of my strange history, but I’m getting better, more confident every day. Right now, I’m confident enough to know that your loyalty to her is a good thing, because it means that you’re an honorable man who takes his vows seriously. If you were faithless, I couldn’t love you, because those things mean a lot to me as well, and I do love you, Randolf. I love all of you, including your memories of Claire, but I want to add some new memories, sweet memories, of me, so she’ll have to scoot over a bit to make room.”

He’s gaping now, astonished. “You remind me of Claire, you know. She was hard-headed like that, and forthright, just like you, but you’re different too. You’re softer, more sensuous, more vulnerable.”

I smile. There was a time, and not so long ago, that I would have been insanely jealous to hear that we’d been similar in any way, preferring a Randolf who was a clueless idiot to one who’d ever cared for any other woman. “I should hope that we’re a lot alike, Randolf, because she would have had to have been a lot like me to love you as much as I do, you big ape! Now come here and kiss me!”

He does, and very nicely too, but I want more. “I’m tired, Randolf. Let’s lie down for a while and rest. We’ll start back in the morning. Oh! You’d better hang your uniform over there, unless you have another with you, as this one will be wrinkled by morning, if it isn’t already.”

By now it’s getting late, and we’re both exhausted. He carefully lays his uniform over the chair and lies down on my bed to rest. I lie down beside him, then scoot over right next to him, wrapping my arms around him, and close my eyes. We both wake up about midnight, or maybe he’s been awake already, but I open my eyes and see the hands of the bedside clock glowing in the dark and look over to see his eyes are open and he’s looking at me, just looking, as he leans on one elbow beside me. I reach up and touch the line of his jaw, feel the slight stubble there, then reach up a bit higher and touch the smooth skin under his eye.

He leans over and gives me a gentle kiss, then lays back again. I reach over and hold his hand for a couple of minutes thinking about the kiss and the faint lingering fragrance of his day-old aftershave. I decide I want another kiss and lean over him to obtain it. Long, gentle, and tasty. He begins touching me gently as we share another kiss. His hands are softly caressing my body in a way that feels so very delicious. I wish he had been my husband on that mission, I might never have wanted it to end. We begin to share many more touches, kisses and… other marvelous things.

-o~O~o-

When I awaken again, I softly flow off the bed and into the bathroom then come back and change to my nightgown. I’m glad my breasts are now my own even if they aren’t quite up to C-cup yet. I flow back into bed and snuggle against Randolf, who is still sleeping. There is something different about sleeping next to him. Something more calm and protective than it had ever been with my ex-husband. With him I always felt like I was next to a coiled snake which was ready to strike…. I stop myself. ‘See!’ I scold myself. ‘I have memories too, but mine aren’t even nice! I only wish I had memories of my ex-husband as beautiful as his memories of Claire.’ With Randolf, I know that he cares how I feel, and wants to please and protect me. He makes me feel safe and warm and loved.

I think back to just a short couple of hours past and how I always thought lovemaking should be the way it just was with Randolf. He is gentle and caring even when he’s in the throes of passion and his needs are driving him. I don’t feel used, abused, and cold after our session. Instead I feel warmth, joy, and the need to make him forever my own.

I think about my own memories, most of which are precious to me. I think about my Dad and how he died when I was just eight. Did I stop loving him, just because he was dead? He was a man, and I loved him, but does that mean that I can never love another man? Or does it mean instead that my love for Randolf is part of the love I had for my Dad? I love Randolf because of who he is, but also because my Dad was a good man, and some of the things I loved in my Dad are there in Randolf, and it doesn’t diminish him in my eyes, but makes him ever so much more dear and precious to me.

I also think of Happy, who acted almost human most of the time; he just was stuck in a dog body. I begin to see what he still means to me, a dear part of my memories of home, a part of the home I’ll build someday. I hope that I’ll always remember him, will cuddle with my future dog, and I will have another dog — I know it now — and will sometimes think about how much Happy would have liked this moment, but then life will go on. Memories aren’t like vampires that suck the blood out you, but the tools of daily life. I knew a vampire, a real vampire, who tried to destroy my life, and I know now that I’ll never forget him, but that memory will arm me against other vampires and evil men, and let me recognize them, because I’ll hold up his wicked memory like a mirror, and see their true reflection.

I can hold up that same twisted mirror to Randolf, and see how straight and good he is, and brave. I can see how much more of a man he is than than my ex-husband will ever be, because Randolf uses his strength, all his powers, to protect the people he loves, the country he loves, where my creepy ex-husband just wanted to be strong so he could hurt people, and had obviously been using his position of trust to grasp at money and power for himself alone.

I looked again at Randolf sleeping, his soul untroubled by past doubts, because he was steadfast and true. I knew that he’d never hesitate to do the right thing, would never betray me, because it wasn’t in him to be mean or petty or selfish.

How do you explain the love you feel for any individual? Is it the way they look? Their unique personality or unique smell or tone of voice? Or is it at least partly their past and what it means? Randolf saw in my history something he admired, where I’d seen only embarrassment and shame, had hidden myself away, crawled under a rock and pulled it down on top of me, but Randolf had, before he even knew me, helped to pry me out from my prison and set me free. We may use words, but words are hollow things. People like my ex-husband use them, but never mean them, except perhaps when they mean something nasty and cruel, but with Randolf, I didn’t need words, well, not so much, because his actions spoke volumes about his true heart. We’re going to make new memories, and they’ll be good memories, fit to join all our other good memories, my Dad, his Claire, Happy, my Mom, Sis, all jumbled together and dear. I smile at him, gripping his hand a little tighter. Looking at his sleeping face, I see hope.

-o~O~o-

Later we awaken again, he is first and I feel him trying to gently extract himself from under me without waking me and I look down his body and laugh. I can see that he has to visit the bathroom and move enough that he’s able make a hasty charge toward the facility. When he returns, he looks at me and smiles, then turns to his suitcase, opens it, and then returns to my side, concealing something in his hand. He asks me to sit up, and even says, “Please.”

I look at him without comprehension, but do as he asks.

He goes down on one knee next to the bed and takes my hand, then uncovers what he’s holding, a little black box with a completely fabulous diamond ring in it as he says, “Princess, will you marry me?”

It’s an engagement band.

He’s just asked me to marry him.

I can hear the blood rushing through my ears, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh….

I look first at it, and then at him. I can feel the fear and indecision on my face and hope that he’s not nearly as good at reading expressions as Mom and Sis are.

I can’t help it; I’m thinking my way through an existential crisis. I’m thinking about all we’ve discussed and all we’ve done together. I’m thinking about my ex-husband, about the Colonel who’d assaulted me because he hated me for what I was, a ‘freak’ and a ‘travesty’ in his eyes, who didn’t deserve to breathe the same air he did. I’m thinking about Karen, the first ‘stranger’ I’d shared my secret with, who’d welcomed me without question, much less condemnation.

It isn’t like a switch where I am either male or female, despite my physical changes. Doesn’t it say in the Bible, ‘Male and female He created them?’ Maybe I’m both, male and female, no matter what organs I had on the outside or the inside, a bit of each. But my personality, my soul, is still the same person I always was, as far as I can tell. I’m a human being, someone who can share the anguish of other human beings, someone who can share their joys.

Randolf looks apprehensive.

Luckily, because I am human, I can feel his uncertainty. I smile.

Looking at his face and again at the ring, I make my decision and open my mouth to speak, still smiling.

---

 

To Be Continued….       © 2008, 2009 by T D Aldoennetti & Rénae Dúmas. This work may not be replicated or presented in whole or in part by any means electronic or otherwise without the express consent of the Author (copyright holder) or her assigned representative. ALL Rights Reserved, including but not limited to ownership of Characters, final content decision, and more. This is a work of Fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents past, present or future is purely coincidental. An Aldoennetti Original.