“What’d you tell the boyfriend, then?” Marsh asked.
“Which one, smarty? There’s at least, oh, I don’t know, four, five?”
She was wearing a shiny green longish dress, tight on top, with layers of interesting lace and nylon underneath. The outfit accentuated her lush body. Marsh always considered himself a leg man, but that tight top was hard to ignore.
“Eyes in the boat there, sailor,” she said with an arch smile.
“You wore that here,” he said. “I’m supposed to pretend you’re one of the boys?”
She took a deep breath, which did amazing things to the dress and all the lacy bits underneath. Definitely not a boy. Before he could gather his wits, the band started playing and she wanted to dance. Me, too, he thought. Slow and close, if possible.
They’d drifted dreamily through two numbers and were headed back to their table when Glory made her entrance. Even the guys in the band noticed, Marsh thought, because their timing went off the tracks for a second or two. The bustling crowd of officers at the bar turned like a drill team to stare before the bolder ones began to make their way through the dancers. Then Marsh noticed a table of older officers across the room, whose shoulder-board insignia indicated they were all Medical Corps. One guy in particular stood up when Glory arrived, a tall, dark-haired, and very handsome full commander.
“What are you looking at?” Sally said from below his right shoulder.
“Trouble, I do believe,” he said.
She turned to look and then whistled softly. “See the tall guy? The commander? Watch what happens.”
They sat down and watched as Glory made her way like the Queen of Sheba across the floor, slowly peeling her gloves off, one at a time. The commander got about five feet away and started to put out his hand. Glory turned one of her tungsten smiles on the poor guy, wiggled the fingers of her right hand in his direction, and then walked past him and straight into the nearest group of panting lieutenant commanders. The group closed around her like a mass of white chain mail and swept her back to the bar. Glory was talking to them as if she’d known them all for years. The tall commander stood there for a second, looking like a stunned bird.
“That was planned?” Marsh asked.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “That’s Dr. Stembridge. Her boss, actually. They call him Superman at the hospital, because he’s always saying ‘Super!’ And also because he’s an incredible surgeon.”
“Not so super just now,” Marsh said. “I think I want to hear this.”
She drew apart from him and gave him a look.
“I’m all grown up now,” he said, “but there has to be more to this story. I wonder if she knows Beast is here.”
Sally looked alarmed. “Is he? Oh, my. This might get really interesting. You’ll have to ply me with lots more liquor, though.”
“Champagne do it?” Marsh asked.
“Every time,” she giggled. Her shining blue eyes banished all thoughts of Glory, who remained invisible behind her screen of white uniforms. Marsh decided to try some boldness of his own.
“Did I tell you I have a BOQ room tonight?” he said.
“Did I hear you mention champagne?” she replied, studiously ignoring any mention of a room.
“Ah, yes, you did,” he said. He signaled a passing cocktail waitress that he needed something. Once she’d taken his order he caught Sally trying to suppress a grin.
“What’s funny?” he asked. He almost had to shout over all the noise in the dining room.
“How long did it take you get up the nerve to tell me that?”
“About five seconds,” he said.
“I’m impressed,” she said. She leaned back in her chair, smoothed her hands through her hair, and ran a stockinged foot up the inside of his right leg under the table.
“Why don’t we open that champagne somewhere else, then?” she asked.
Marsh tried to say okay without whimpering too much, his interest in the back story of Superman and Glory long forgotten.
* * *
Glory found herself in possession of at least five cocktails and an equal number of anxiously attentive young men. It felt wonderful, even though she knew that at some point she’d have to do some maneuvering. It was almost like being back at Annapolis, with a crowd of Navy men pressing in on her, all with high hopes and all with no chance whatsoever. She saw some of the other nurses surreptitiously watching her. She stared back at two of them, who quickly turned away. She avoided looking over at the doctors’ table, not wanting to stir up any more unnecessary trouble.
All of them wanted to dance with her, but she said she needed another drink before she was ready for that. The five drinks in front of her became ten, and she dutifully tried them all, albeit in tiny sips. The noise in the club was growing as the band tried to make itself heard above the muted roar of conversation. Two tables of aviators were getting a little rowdy, but they were still in the amusing stage. The sheer number of people was defeating the overhead fans, and she felt herself beginning to perspire underneath all that makeup. She turned around and leaned back against the bar, carelessly thrusting her chest forward and then scanning the room to see what was happening. Unexpectedly, she locked eyes with Mick McCarty.
They stared at each other for a long moment while the buzz of anxious conversation all around her retreated into the background. Then Mick grinned that damned Irish grin of his. She couldn’t help it: She smiled right back.
She could almost hear him saying it: I go with the first girl who smiles. Then he was there, cutting her out of the crowd like a pro, substantially bigger than everyone around her, and then they were together on the dance floor. Mick never could dance, but he could definitely hold a woman and make her not care one whit about his dancing ability. His right hand rested just far enough below her waist to make her aware of it.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said, imitating one of the downtown bar girls. “I love you so fucking much.”
She giggled. “I heard a story about you, that you were in hack,” she said to his shoulder.
“In hack, in trouble, in pain, in the drunk tank, in Pensacola, in a rehab clinic, and now back out here in pineapple paradise. Tomorrow or in a day or so, back to sea, this time in the Big E.”
“They’re taking you back?”
“Not willingly,” he said, “but believe it or not, we’ve got more carriers than aviators just now, so they kinda had to.”
She squeezed his left hand. “Why are you still wearing your gloves?” she asked.
“My right paw doesn’t look so good right now,” he said. “That was the rehab mission. It works, but it looks like Frankenstein made it.”
“I’d forgotten,” she said, as the band wound down one dance number and then shifted into the next one.
Just then Stembridge appeared. “May I have the honor, Lieutenant?” he asked, tapping Mick on the shoulder.
“You want to dance with me?” Mick asked innocently.
“Not my type,” Stembridge said, “but she is.”
Mick looked at Glory, who nodded almost imperceptibly. “Don’t go far,” she whispered.
Mick gave Stembridge a quick mock bow and went back to the bar. Glory offered her hand, and Stembridge stepped in. They began to dance as the crowd closed in. Glory waited for him to say something, but he didn’t. Okay, she thought. I can play this game. Just for the hell of it, though, she moved into him, pressing one thigh and then the other where it might do the most good.
“I do believe I’m being disciplined,” he said finally.
“Whatever are you talking about?” she asked and bumped him again.
“Oh, hell,” he said. “I don’t know. You and I have been close for months, but not really. I’d love to take you to bed, but every time I even think about making a move, you’ve…”
“I’ve what?”
He sighed. “You’ve nothing. I guess I’ve been too busy being Superman. I’m sorry, Glory. I should have paid more attention.”
<
br /> “Is that what you think I wanted? Attention?”
He moved away from her. “Yes, I do. You may not have known it, but, yes, that’s what I think you wanted. Attention. A suitor, even.”
She looked away. He’d seen right through her. That’s exactly what she’d wanted, and, truth be told, she’d been dishonest about it. To him, to herself.
“It’s been two years,” she said. “Since that awful day. Perhaps you don’t understand.”
“Clue me in.”
“I’ve been the object of every man’s attention since I turned sixteen. Tommy was—special. He didn’t play games. He fell in love with me and I fell in love with him. That was precious. All the rest of it? That was, I think, lust.”
“Lust is human,” he said. “We poor men are wired for lust. Tarzan see Jane. Tarzan want Jane. Jane better lie down, or Tarzan will get out the club.”
“How convenient,” she said, looking up at him. “’Poor me, the big strong man says. I’m permanently disabled by a short-circuit between my brain and my—”
He put a finger on her lips, then pulled it away and examined the lipstick. “Poor me, indeed,” he said. Then he smiled, and so did she. “I keep asking myself: Am I in love with Glory Lewis, or is it just desire?”
“Come to an answer yet?”
“I want to know you as a woman. Not as a medical colleague, not as an OR supe, not as my chief assistant, but as a lovely woman. But I’ve felt all along that that can’t happen until you’re ready to be a woman again. I felt as if it would be wrong for me to, oh, what’s the right word—push?”
Then Mick was back. He tapped Stembridge on the shoulder, perhaps a little harder than necessary. “Commander,” he said. “May I have the honor?”
Stembridge stepped back, his gaze locked with Glory’s. “I guess I should have, after all,” he said. He nodded to Mick. “Lieutenant.”
Then he was gone and Mick had her enclosed in those massive arms. She wanted to look back, to say something to Superman, but the moment passed, probably forever. For some strange reason, she felt a small pang of regret. Then she felt Mick.
“Hey, I brought you a drink,” he said.
“So you did,” she said. “Hopefully there’s more where that came from.”
“The world’s supply,” he said.
She drained half of it and then handed the glass back to Mick. Then, looking directly into his eyes, she moved in and pressed her body against his. “Change of plan,” she whispered.
“Really,” he said, a knowing grin spreading across his face.
“Really,” she replied. “I’m going to the ladies’. You go out front and have a cigarette. Then we’ll take a walk or something.”
“Something,” he said. “Definitely something.”
By the time they got back to the nurses’ quarters, he was walking close behind her, letting those big hands roam, while she kept her mind blank and let him do it, whatever he wanted, until they fell into her room upstairs and she pushed him down onto her bed. There was no need for any more talk, and she knew it. He started to get back up, but she shook her head and then took her clothes off, slowly at first but then faster as her own need welled up. Mick stripped his clothes off in a flurry of uniform pieces, then lay back on the bed at full staff. Glory stared at him hungrily for a moment, then slid down on top of him, letting her breasts flatten up the length of his thighs as she stretched out and upward on his body.
“Go fast,” she murmured.
“I remember,” he said and then drove himself deep inside her. She gasped once, convulsing in a shallow release almost before she knew it. Then Mick grasped both her hips and started in, his eyes drinking in that heavenly body and the way her swaying hair obscured her face as she matched him. After a little while she came again, this time with a gut-wrenching force and a cry of deep release. He pulled her to him and kissed her hard on the mouth while he arched his back and went even deeper, never stopping for a moment until she pulled away to catch her breath. In a moment she was prone on the bed and he was taking her from behind, those massive arms locking her into a violent, bruising embrace as he went for his own ride. He was hurting her now and she struggled, but then her body betrayed her and she once again rose to it as a wave of bliss overtook the pain and she felt him empty himself deep inside her.
She collapsed on the sweat-soaked sheet, trying to get her breath. Mick stayed with her, doing an awkward stationary push-up so that she could breathe. She was startled to see that the sheet was smeared with her lipstick and made to wipe it off except that her arms wouldn’t work. Her whole body felt like a mass of gelatin, every inch alive and quivering. He lowered himself to the bed alongside her and pulled her into a strong embrace, his breath smelling of Scotch as he buried his face in her damp hair and listened to her pounding heartbeat.
She thought of Tommy then, how he would never have taken her this way. Tommy loved her deeply but had never mustered this depth of sexual need or physical violence. Tommy was the brain. The gentle, loving brain. Mick was the Beast. She waited for a sense of guilt, but nothing like that came. She’d been emotionally dead for the last two years, but not anymore. She thought briefly of Marsh, fondly even. He was with his Sally, and she was perfect for him. Stronger than he was but a sufficiently wily woman to never let him know that, even as she gathered him in to precisely where he belonged. She felt Mick stir beside her. He began to stroke her bottom.
“Ever hear the story about the sex surveyor?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“Sex surveyor turned up on a housewife’s front porch, asked if he could ask her his survey questions. Didn’t want to come in or anything, just ask his questions. She said sure. So he went through his list, then got to the last one. Which was: Do you smoke after having sex?”
“And?”
“She said, ‘You know, I’ve never looked.’”
She laughed, and then they both looked.
“Not yet,” she said.
“Let’s work on that,” he said.
“First, where’s that world’s supply?”
* * *
Marsh led Sally though the door to his BOQ room and locked it behind them. He was carrying the sweating bottle of champagne and realized there was nowhere to put it. The BOQ rooms were more like cells than hotel rooms: a single metal bed, a metal dresser, a closet, a sink, one chair, and a steel kneehole desk. The communal showers and bathrooms were down the hall. He put the bottle down on the desk, not sure of what to do next. Sally went to the bed and sat down, then indicated he should sit next to her by patting the bed.
“We need some ice,” he said. “A bucket or something. And some glasses. I forgot glasses.”
“That’s the last thing we need,” she said, kicking off her shoes. She patted the bed again. He sat down next to her. To his surprise, she bounced back up and then stood in front of him. Then she turned her back.
“Zipper, kind sir,” she said. “Please.”
“Right,” he said. He reached up and undid the little hook at the top of her dress and then lowered the zipper. It went a long way down the soft curves of her back. She reached over her shoulders with both hands, did something, and the dress slid to the floor. She was wearing a full-length slip, under which was a girdle, among other filmy female things.
For a moment he just sat there, his hands on her hips, the white nylon of her slip silky to his hands. Then he leaned his head forward, pressing his forehead into the small of her back, drinking in the scents of her perfume and rising arousal.
She flicked the straps off her shoulders, and the slip slid down her back, bunching at her waist. She said not a word, but he knew what was expected. He gathered the slip and pulled it down over her hips, still pressing his forehead into her back. Then he moved his hands over her waist and hips, as if to smooth the fabric of all the remaining underthings. She leaned back against him as he ran his hands down and then back up her thighs, softly but knowingly, his own excitement building. He strip
ped away the rest of her underwear until she was naked in front of him. Then she turned around, encircled his head with her hands, and told him to kiss her like he meant it.
An hour later Sally lay with her back to his perspiring chest, her hair in his face and the rest of her melted against him. When he opened his eyes he saw the champagne bottle on the table. It was still sweating, but not as much as he was.
God damn! he thought. She must have read his mind, because she squeezed his hand and let out a contented sigh.
“I think we missed New Year’s,” he said.
“I seem to remember some fireworks,” she said. “Does that count?”
Marsh grinned in the darkness. “You bet,” he said.
She was quiet for a few minutes. He thought she’d drifted off to sleep, but then she sighed.
“What?” he asked.
“A new year,” she said. “I can remember when New Year’s was purely fun, with everyone looking forward to what was coming next. Not anymore.”
“I suppose anything can happen over the next twelve months,” he said. “The bastards may even give up. They have to know by now they can’t win this thing. And Roosevelt will never negotiate with them. Not after December seventh.”
“You really believe they’ll give up?”
“No,” he said, after thinking about it. “It’s not in their blood, apparently. I heard that we had to kill forty-seven hundred Japs to take Tarawa, and that we lost nearly one thousand of our own guys dead in the process. Another two thousand wounded or missing. There were just seventeen Japs left alive when it was over.”
She sighed again. “Then this war will go on forever.”
“It won’t,” he said, “but it’s gonna seem like it. Tarawa was tiny—maybe a half mile across at its widest point. Wait until we have to go into the Home Islands.”
“Happy, happy New Year,” she said.
“It is right now,” he said. “Let’s see if that champagne is still drinkable.”
“Champagne makes me tipsy,” she said. “No telling what might happen then.”
“One way to find out. Let me up.”
“Up?” she asked innocently.
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