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Our secret was discovered and dismembered in the most painful of ways. In a scene that still haunted my nightmares, I’d been forced to leave or face the cruel wrath of his parents. Even though Sebastian had been only months from his eighteenth birthday, my crime was a felony, and his parents had threatened to have me arrested if I ever contacted their son again. And, with the California’s statute of limitations being three years, I’d been forced to comply.
Since the day I’d walked out of my marriage ten years earlier, I hadn’t seen or heard of Sebastian.
I’d thought of him often, wondering what he’d made of his life, where he’d gone, what he’d become, wishing to believe he was fulfilled and happy. And now, here he was, standing in the same room as me again, dressed in the khaki Service Uniform of the US Marine Corps.
I slumped lower in my chair, glad that my face was partially concealed beneath my scarf. My heart was beating so fast I was afraid I might actually pass out.
Liz nudged me.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded silently. She threw me a puzzled look, but shrugged it off, leaving me to dwell on remembrances of things past.
The door opened again and Major Parsons returned. He waited for the lieutenant to finish his point, throwing an irritated glance at Sebastian, who slouched at the side of the room, a bored expression on his face.
“Thank you, Tom. We’ll take a short break now, ladies and gentleman, and meet back here at 1100 hours. Refreshments will be served in Les Nations lounge. And we’re very glad to have our colonial colleague Chief Hunter to join us. I’m sure his insight will be invaluable.”
I doubted I was the only one who heard the note of sarcasm.
The other journalists stood up to go, following our military escort out of the room, but I was incapable of standing, afraid that my legs would give way.
“Ah, the infamous Chief Hunter,” said Liz, in a stage whisper. “Well, he certainly looks the part. Quite the lady-killer, I hear.”
“Excuse me?” I said, faintly.
“The American… he has something of a reputation. I’m surprised you haven’t heard.”
“Why would I?” I managed to choke out. “Heard what?”
She gave a conspiratorial chuckle and leaned towards me. If there’s one thing journalists the world over have in common, they do love to gossip.
“Oh, I came across our Chief Hunter in Paris two years ago, although he was a humble sergeant then. Well, not that humble, you understand! Yes, a rather notorious lothario: it was something of an amour célèbre. They say he was tupping the wife of his CO, although nothing was made public, and it was all hushed up.”
“Surely that’s just gossip?” I said, weakly. “I mean – if he had – it would have been a federal felony: a court martial, and then he’d have been thrown out of the Corps.”
“I’m just telling you what I heard,” said Liz, with a leer. “Suffice to say he was shipped out of Paris PDQ. Whatever the reason, they say he’s got an eye for the ladies.” She nudged me, a wicked look in her eye. “I imagine you’d be quite his cup of tea, Lee.”
“Oh no, I don’t feel like joining a harem,” I laughed, a little faintly. “I’m sure Chief Hunter has a parade of young women following him.”
I remembered that feeling very well.
If Liz noticed that my tone was off, she politely ignored it.
“Well, perhaps, but I believe his tendencies run in another direction – he’s known to like his women older… more experienced.”
I winced.
“They say he’s brilliant in the field,” she continued, unaware of the impact her words were having on me. “That’s why they put up with his behavior off the field. I heard a whisper that he was headhunted by military intelligence, but you know how close-mouthed your lot are about that. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were one of those men who’s a complete nightmare when he’s not doing something dangerous. You know the kind: reckless, a bullet magnet.” She tapped me on the arm. “They say he drinks.”
Her comment cut through me like a knife. Oh no. Not like Estelle – not like his mother.
With some bitterness I remembered her drunken rant the night I’d left San Diego. She’d called me a ‘whore’ and ‘slut’ and various other unpleasant names. And she’d slapped me hard enough to make my teeth rattle. She would have hit me again if Sebastian hadn’t stopped her.
The memories, long since locked away, came flooding back.
“Do you want to get coffee, Lee?” said Marc.
“Sorry, what?”
“Coffee, Venzi!” snapped Liz. “Yay or nay?”
“Oh, no, I’m fine. You guys go ahead.”
I wrapped my arms around my knees, physically holding myself together, as the intensity of my feelings floored me.
I took deep breaths and tried to keep calm, but my body was swamped by a rush of adrenaline and the desire for fight or flight overtook me. Right now I was favoring flight – except for the inconvenient fact that if I’d tried to stand up I’d have fallen over.
I heard someone return to the room and the blood drained from my face.
“You look a little pale, Lee,” said Marc, a hint of concern in his voice. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Just a bit… cold.”
He gave me a look that showed he wasn’t convinced, but accepted my explanation.
When the others filed back into the room, I hunched over my notes and hid as best I could. I was ashamed of myself. Why on earth couldn’t I get up, walk over to him and say ‘hi, hello, how are you’ like a normal person? I would do it, of course, I told myself: I would do it during the lunch break, when we weren’t surrounded by curious eyes.
Liz was the last to return, by which time I’d managed to pull myself together somewhat: or, as my father might have said, a horseman galloping by at a hundred yards wouldn’t have noticed anything amiss.
“Ready for round two?” Liz whispered loudly.
I could tell that she’d had more than coffee during the ten minute recess. I wasn’t surprised: drinking was one of the hazards that beset our way of life.
And then my plans to reintroduce myself to Sebastian with a modicum of privacy and dignity were blasted out of the water.
“Just a quick roll call before we go on,” said Major Parsons, “now everyone is here… so we all know who’s who.” And he proceeded to call out our names. I was last.
“Lee Venzi?”
I nodded and raised my hand.
I saw Sebastian’s eyes flicker across to me, then widen with shock as recognition set in, and, for the briefest of moments, he looked like the 17 year old I had known.
“You’re Lee Venzi?” he blurted out.
Everyone turned to stare at me, alerted by the tone of his voice, so I was the only one who saw his expression turn to something darker, almost hateful – before he controlled his features and looked away.
My heart lurched uncomfortably. He looked like he really hated me. I hadn’t expected that, although I suppose I couldn’t blame him. It must have been a difficult time for him after I’d left. Even so, to have such a residue of dislike after so long… I began to feel a little sick.
I took a deep breath and tried to focus on my notes.
Marc nudged me to attract my attention.
“You know that guy? Mr. Sullen-but-beautiful?”
“Yes, we’ve met,” I said, dryly.
“Hmm, I think there’s a story there, Venzi. Care to share?”
“Some other time.”
He eyed me narrowly, but I twitched a small smile and returned my waning attention to the talk.
Unwillingly, I glanced at Sebastian, but he was staring out of the window, a faraway expression on his face. I wondered if he was remembering, as I was, how we’d met, and our brief but stormy summer of love. Or lust. Depending on your point of view.
Even as I tried to bat away the images, they filled my mind. Even now I remembered the intensity of our lovemaki
ng; the way we could never get enough of each other – his hands, his lips, his tongue sweeping across my body.
As the lieutenant continued to lecture us on precautions against carjacking and criminal attacks, shatterproof windows and tracking devices, I was devoured by a series of increasingly erotic images that brought a warm flush of color to my cheeks.
“Because most attacks occur on reaching home,” the lieutenant droned on, “always ensure that you can drive straight into your garage or compound, and secure the door or gate behind you.”
Liz looked bored, utterly clueless as to the helter-skelter of emotions that disturbed the equilibrium of my mind. She began to whisper an amusing tale to me, the gist of which was that she’d ended up ramming her car into the garage wall not once but twice, during a posting in Cairo, doing exactly what the lieutenant was suggesting. Her sotto voce comment was more voce than sotto, and caused several titters among the rest of the journalists.
The young lieutenant looked annoyed at Liz’s too-loud interruption to his lecture.
“This is serious, madam. What I tell you today may save your life.”
Uh-oh. Wrong thing to say to Miss Ticking-timebomb.
She inflated like the turkey float on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.
“Listen, sunshine, you may think you’re something special with a weapon of mass destruction dangling between your legs, but let me tell you a thing or two: I’ve been to the frontline of every war since Uganda in 1979, before you were bloody well born.” She started ticking them off on her fingers. “Angola, Croatia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan… bloody hell, places you’ve never even heard of. And this woman,” she pointed her chin at me, “has been in more hot spots than you’ve had hot dates.”
I could have predicted Liz’s response, although I didn’t agree with her: to me the next assignment was always like the first – and experienced correspondents were just as likely to get hurt as the newbies.
The lieutenant’s ears turned red, and he looked flustered. I thought I detected a small smile on Sebastian’s lips, but it immediately disappeared, so I couldn’t be sure.
Major Parsons stepped in to retrieve the situation and the poor lieutenant was allowed to continue.
Several times, during the rest of the lecture, I felt Sebastian’s eyes on me, but every time I looked up, he’d glance away with a sneer on his beautiful face.
By lunchtime, I’d worked up enough courage to speak to him. But Sebastian, it seemed, had other ideas. He disappeared out of the door before I had the chance to utter a single syllable. I sighed: it looked like he wanted to avoid me.
Marc, however, more than usually sensitive to the emotions of others, was on the trail of a story.
“Come on, Lee, spill your beans. How do you know our Chief Hunter?”
“And how come you didn’t say you know him,” said Liz, sounding annoyed.
“It was a long time ago,” I said, trying to sound casual, and failing miserably.
“And?”
“And nothing,” I insisted.
“Oh, come on, Lee!” said Liz, accusingly. “You get me to tell you all the scandal I know about our mysterious Chief Hunter, and you don’t even mention that you already know him. You’re holding out, I can tell.”
“Yes, chérie,” agreed Marc with a smile, “I, too, think you are keeping secrets.”
They knew me so well. Plus, they were journalists, which made them the nosiest people on the planet.
“I met him when I lived in California,” I said at last. “When I was married.”
“Ah,” said Liz, knowingly. “Fair enough, Lee.”
They both knew I was divorced and didn’t like to talk about my marriage. Thankfully, they didn’t ask any further questions.
I spent an uncomfortable lunch hour wondering what to say to him. What could I say? Sorry about that – I hope I didn’t ruin your life – how are you?
In any event, I didn’t have to say anything because Sebastian didn’t return after lunch. His departure wasn’t commented on by his British colleagues, and they stoically ignored his absence.
The afternoon session continued with little to inform or interest those of us who had sat through these lectures several times before. The only bit I was really interested in came on day two and covered questions specific to Kabul and, to a lesser extent, Kandahar.
I wondered why Sebastian hadn’t come back. Surely it couldn’t have anything to do with me? That would just be ridiculous.
When we were finally dismissed for the day, Liz wandered off to catch up with some sources, or so she said. I suspected these were more sauces – and of the alcoholic type. Marc muttered something about a prior engagement and I was left to my own, tangled thoughts.
Irritated with myself and perplexed by Sebastian’s behavior, I spent a dreary evening in my room. I amused myself by writing long emails to Alice and Jenna. I didn’t bother writing more than a few words to Nicole: I knew she only read the first and last paragraphs, unless the messages were from a guy.
I thought that I was at least tired enough to manage a reasonable amount of sleep, but my dreams were haunted by a memory of sea-green eyes, golden skin and naked flesh.
I was rudely awoken shortly after dawn, by an orgasm ripping through me. My back arched and my legs were rigid as I rode out the waves of sensation.
I sat up gasping, shocked at the way my body had betrayed me.
What the hell was that? An orgasm in my sleep?! That definitely hadn’t happened before.
I staggered into the shower, trying to wash away the memories that continued to torment me.
The second day of the training began much like the first, except Sebastian’s continuing coldness towards me became apparent to the others.
“The beautiful Chief Hunter is staring at you again, Lee,” said Marc, unnecessarily. “He does not look happy with you.”
Sadly, I had to agree.
Today the lectures had started off with how to spot a minefield. Dead animals were a big clue, but it was also looking out for areas avoided by locals, particularly if the surrounding area was turned to agriculture, where anything overgrown stood out. Pieces of waxed packaging were something to look out for, too – explosives often came wrapped in them.
And then, for the language section of our training, we were in Sebastian’s capable hands – something of which I’d once had considerable experience.
“Yes,” said Liz, agreeing with Marc’s assessment, “young Chief Hunter narrows his eyes every time he looks at you.”
I sighed and smiled at her. “Maybe my Dari pronunciation is lacking.”
I’d been more than a little impressed to find that at some point over the last ten years, Sebastian had become fluent in Dari, a dialect of Afghan Persian, as well as Pashto and Arabic.
He was teaching us how to introduce ourselves and give our name, job title and nationality in the languages we’d need, as well as a useful passage from the Koran for emergencies.
I remembered how quickly his Italian had improved when we’d first started dating. Ugh, ‘dating’: that seemed such a deeply inadequate word for our tumultuous and passionate affair.
“Perhaps Ms. Venzi can answer that question.”
Sebastian’s voice cut through my bedraggled thoughts.
“Excuse me? Um, what was the question?” I stammered.
He didn’t even bother to answer, but looked away, an expression of disdain on his face.
“Oh, dear! He’ll have you staying behind after class,” chuckled Liz.
Then he told us that a typical answer to a question an Afghan couldn’t answer would be for them to say, ‘because the sea is green and the sky is blue’.
“Tell them that and they’ll think you’re clever,” he said, gazing condescendingly at me.
I felt flustered and annoyed: no matter what had happened ten years ago, there was no need for him to be so unpleasant. I decided I’d have it out with him at the first opportunity.
Sure enough, as soon as Major Parsons called a break, Sebastian headed for the door.