by Tina Maurine
“Can I ask your honest opinion?”
I could tell by the rare seriousness that etched her face something was weighing heavily on her mind.
“Sure, give it to me. I’ll try my best,” I replied, and continued getting dressed.
“So, you know it has been about seven weeks, and I’ve seen Trigg quite a bit… and well, I was thinking about maybe…” Sammie paused, and I looked up at her. She was biting her lip, studying her toenail polish.
“You want to do him, huh?”
“Well, I don’t know. I mean, yes. Or maybe… shit, Tessa, I don’t know. I like him and all, but don’t want to ruin our friendship.”
“How serious is it, Sam? Are you guys more friends, or is there that pulse of passion that creeps up and burns in your veins? You know, the way you get when you’re around someone and feel like you’re going to explode? That passionate coil that builds inside you, and you know you’re simply gonna blow if you don’t find your release in him, with him? You know… the ‘I’ve got to fuck you, or I’ll die’ feeling?”
Sammie stood, dumbfounded. Her jaw went a little slack, and a blank glaze clouded her eyes. “You mean like the way you were with Dane at the bar?”
I nodded. “Sam, does he do that to you? You know, make you feel unhinged when you touch?”
I could tell she was processing, reconciling my words with what she had witnessed of Dane and me at the Privateer and later at the flat.
“Huh? Well, no.” She plopped down on the arm of our recliner. “Fuck, Tessa. I don’t think that I’ve ever felt like that for a guy… ever.” The awkward silence that followed spoke volumes about her experience in the love/fucking department.
“You’ve fucked before, right?” I asked softly, not wanting to insult her innocence if she hadn’t, and not wanting to piss her off if she had.
“Well, I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“It’s not.” I smiled at her encouragingly.
We’re becoming more and more like sisters; the chapters of our past slowly opening for each other to read.
“Fuck, Tessa—NO, I’ve never had a guy take me the way Dane took you.”
“Sammie, this is not about me. It’s no competition either. I was just asking if you and Trigg had that magic spark that turns your friendship into a relationship, or an exciting passion for each other… ‘cause if neither is present, it might be safer to just keep it on the friendship level.” I shrugged apologetically. “I didn’t mean anything by what I said—you know I love you and am not trying to make you feel badly.” Again, I smiled, trying to ease the tension her last defensive outburst had sparked in the room.
Sammie emitted a growl of frustration. “Ugh. I know. I’m sorry. I’ve just always been the goofy friend. Guys don’t think of me the way they think of you. Guys—everyone: Ari, Dane, Ian, Sage… fuck, and a number of idiots in my shop and on the Line, think you’re hot and would do you in an instant.”
“Oh, and that’s great, right? Is that what you really think? Sammie, that just means that they want in my pants, not that they like me or want me for their friend. You don’t think it would be nice for me to have someone like Trigg around; someone to hang with, cuddle with, really get to know and feel valued by? Why do you think I always talk about Puerto Rico? It’s the last goddamn place I actually felt valued for me, and not for my tits and ass!” That admission startled even me. I sank to a seat on my bed, feeling pretty sacked myself. Smiling at her, I shrugged. “Maybe we should just stay in and call it a movie night?”
“Funny, isn’t it? We always want what’s on the other side of the fence,” she mused. “What I wouldn’t give to have some random guy looking at me the way Dane did you. Dance with me the way he did with you as if you two were the only two people in the world. Fuck me until I came so hard I was heard in the hallway and rooms next door over their loud music and parties.” She stopped, embarrassed, and chuckled nervously as she looked up at me. “Guess I didn’t realize how jealous I was of your romp until now…”
It was my turn to be a little embarrassed. “I had no idea until now, that you’d even heard us.” I stood up and walked over to where she sat, looking defeated and forlorn. I pulled her to me and gave her a hug. “Sammie hon, why don’t you just play it by ear? If it’s meant to happen with Trigg, it will, and you won’t have to overthink it ‘cause it will just feel right. Not that everything that feels right, is right. Take me, for example,” I laughed, and she looked up, fully engaged in our growing mutual understanding for the first time, and laughed with me.
“You can say that again.” Still laughing, she hugged me back. “Thanks, Tess. I had no idea when I met you how much you’d mean to me, girly.”
“I know, right? Isn’t life curious?”
After a good hour or so, I looked back in the mirror at something I could work with. I had applied a pretty dose of make up to my already flushed face to emphasize my eyes and lips. My hair was drying nicely into curly waves that graced my shoulders and cascaded mid-way down my back. I had chosen a simple, form-fitting, faded green t-shirt, and had paired it with my favorite pair of low-waist jeans and a wide brown leather belt. I really liked how the shirt made my tits look hot and totally out there. They were like, “Hi! Here we are. Come ask us to dance!”
As I turned to check out my ass, my shirt rose just a bit, enough so I bared some midriff without looking trashy. I didn’t have much to choose from as far as shoes went, so I opted for a well-worn pair of heeled leather ankle-boots. I threw on a beaded wooden necklace for good measure, plumped my hair at the roots and focused on what Sammie was saying to me.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Don’t yeah, sure me. You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”
I looked at Sammie and could tell I was busted, again. “No, sorry. Tell me again.”
“I was saying I couldn’t wait to dance with Trigg, and maybe you might feel like dancing with Sage or Ketts? I bet Ensign Ian will be there too.” She smiled at me in the mirror. “I love your hair, Tessa. I wish I could do something different with mine, but this is pretty much as good as it gets.” She flounced next to me, waving her hair back and forth as she swayed from side to side.
“It looks good.”
“Beeatch, quit lyin’ to me, or I won’t be able to call you my bestie anymore!” She smacked my ass and sat down in our terribly over-stuffed, faded recliner, to tug on her brown leather Doc Martin boots.
I turned, and what I saw was pure Sammie. She never wore any make up unless she let me put some on her, and tonight was no exception. I mean, I didn’t wear much either, but she somehow seemed to wear even less. She had on her men’s Silver Tab jeans with no belt and a form-fitting shirt. I have got to take her bra shopping; those babies should be riding much higher.
Sammie had brushed her hair, glossed her lips, and well… that was pretty much it. I have to say, though, she was a natural beauty. Her eyes—sparkly and alive—tied for her best feature with her lips (not counting her ‘girls’). She laughed with them, spoke with them. Her quirky mouth turned downward when she smiled, but was full and voluptuous when she was pensive, angry or working. I hadn’t kissed another girl on a dare since Puerto Rico, and didn’t plan to, but, well, get me get drunk enough sometime and I just might.
“Should I bring my coat?” Sammie asked as she stood at the door, holding her Velcro wallet.
“Should you bring your coat? Seriously?” I laughed, threw her leather jacket to her and grabbed my Colombia. It wasn’t trendy but would keep me warm to and from the base club. I gave the room a quick once-over and, satisfied I had everything, grabbed the beer Sammie held out to me, my purse, and we scooted out the door.
12
I angled my watch into the flashing strobe lights that were ricocheting off the club’s ceiling and walls. I had no idea what time it was. Finally, the light hit my watch and it read 0152.
Holy Shit. We’ve been here a long time.
We’d
arrived at the Top of the Rock’s Enlisted Dance Club around 2000, shot some pool and had a few beers over pizza, before heading into the crowded dance side that had been beckoning to us for the past hour. The music had started as Country, and we’d all united on the floor for some flavorful line dancing. I say flavorful in only the best way. It was OUR interpretation; a comical, sexy effort. Sometime around midnight, the beats switched to dance music, and the place really began to bump.
As MC Lyte’s “Cold Rock a Party” boomed over the system, Ace—a friend of ours from the mech shop—pulled me onto the dance floor. Our friends joined us and, it was as if we were a massive organism; moving, bouncing, jumping and swaying as one. Song after song, dance beat after dance the beat thumped and vibrated off every surface in the club. I felt like goop being held together by the energy in the room. Every cell in my body became hyper-aware, high as I was off the five or six Jack and Cokes I’d had along with the intense bass that coursed through me. The dance floor had to have been a broiling 90 plus degrees causing my skin to glisten with sweat and my shirt to stuck to me in all the right places.
The bass vibrated in my chest as I danced with Sage in front of me and some random guy behind me. Neither could dance worth a fuck. I was gearing up to leave the dance floor just as masculine hands landed on my hips, and then gripped them strongly. This mystery man’s strong, virile hands rested squarely on my hip bones, now revealed as my jeans slung dangerously low from my relentless affair with the dance floor. He guided my hips as we danced to Freaknasty’s “Da Dip”, amidst the circus of pulsing insanity that swallowed us like an irate, foaming sea.
Ginuwine’s “Pony” came on next, and when the music slowed, the hands behind me snaked around my torso and guided me into an erotic, sensual game of Simon Says. It seemed that for every response I gave, he countered, and we easily anticipated each other’s next play. I swept my hips from side to side, grinding and gyrating into the rock hard firmness behind me. Between the Jack and Cokes and whiskey shots I’d taken, the scent of his cologne, and the general fuzzy glow I had from the energy in the bar, I started to feel a certain sensation creeping into my core; a small glow he’d ignited. I guarantee he was the best chance I had at having it put out.
The floor was so crowded, the club so dark, and the lighting so intensely bright as it spiraled around the room, that when those hands turned me around and I looked up, the details of his face were lost in the shadows, painted in the club’s camouflage.
I squinted hard to see through the strobes and shadows. He towered close to a foot over me, his strong, lean build molded into mine as though we were meant to be connected. He was roughly hewn, strong, raw and incredibly masculine. His black t-shirt and dark jeans hugged his sculptured body, clinging to the sweat-dampened planes of his form.
I thought I saw some scruff on his strong, determined jaw and high cheekbones that complemented the combat soldier demeanor he radiated, although it was so dark, and I was so delirious from the Jack and beats, that I wouldn’t have bet my life on it.
His full lips parted slightly as he danced. The faint scent of whiskey mixed with his cedar and sweet musk cologne in an intoxicating zephyr. He drew me inexplicably as though he were the nectar and I the bee.
The music paused, and another slow bump and grind R&B song played its opening riff. The strong bass pulsed through my body, and my core answered back, countering each beat. His commanding movement ordered me to follow his lead. He took my hands and drew them up my taut stomach, to my ribs, past my breasts and back down. He led us in an erotic tango. Our bodies conversed in a language all their own, and with each dip and grind, every sway and roll of our hips, our bodies’ non-verbal conversation deepened, as did my draw towards him.
I don’t know how many songs we danced to. At some point, we began moving to our own beat. He kept running his fingers through his dark, wavy hair, mussing it… but brown or black, who was to say? All I knew was I could’ve danced with him all night.
“Hey, Tessa, me and the guys are gonna head back. It’s already twenty minutes after last call,” Sammie shouted over the loud, ‘fuck-me’ music that was beginning to wind down. I nodded, indicating I’d heard her.
The song ended and with it my ride on this carousel. The night had come to an end. Hot lips brushed my forehead as he leaned toward my ear, and I heard in a rough-hewn, sexy growl, “Thank you.” His feverish lips nipped at my neck by my ear and then… he squeezed me and was gone.
It was as if the sea parted for him.
The lights came on not long after the final song ended, and with the music off, the club was emptying pretty quickly. A wisp of a girl came up to me. “You guys looked pretty hot out there.”
I raised an eyebrow, but in my inebriated state, really didn’t give a shit, “Thanks.” I replied flatly.
“He was pretty hot. I was going to ask him to dance with me—he usually dances with me.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” I mumbled, and seeing my friends at a table near the door, excused myself, and sauntered over to them. There were a few hangers-on like us, but they were grabbing our shit and getting ready to blow the joint too.
“What was that about?” Sammie put her arm around my shoulders.
“I have no idea—some loon was staking a claim to the guy I’ve been dancing with. It was weird,” I said shrugging.
“Hey, Tessa just got some chic’s digits!”
“Tess, don’t you know there’s a don’t ask, don’t tell policy?”
My dipshit friends pretty well raked me over the coals, when the only person I felt like talking to was nearly four thousand miles away. If only Wes was closer than several time zones, all those miles, and a phone call away. I could really use his ears, his chest to lean my head on and arms to hold me tight.
I sighed just as Sammie opened her mouth. “Don’t start on me. I’m too tired and feeling homesick for some reason.”
She dropped her arm from around my shoulders, “Whoa, slugger!? Comin’ out of those gates sluggin’ eh?” She jostled me with her elbow, and I nudged her back. Then she looked at me, really looked at me. “Hey, Tess, what’s wrong? You’re usually super spiked after a night of dancing.”
“Ugh. I know, right? Not sure what’s wrong with me. Just listening to the jackasses we choose to spend our time with—"
“…Get it, Get it. Get it!”
“Flip her over and cram her doggy-style…”
Sam raised her hands once she focused on the crap behind me, “ENOUGH! Effin’ change the topic already, she’s had enough.”
“Awww, we’re just jokin’.”
“Yeah, tell her to lighten up…”
Once again, Sam came to my defense. “I’ll lighten you up once I knock a few teeth out of your perverted mouth!”
They sparred back and forth as we grabbed the last of our jackets, the drunkies we’d come with, and headed out the club doors to the front entranceway. Top of the Rock was like a super small mini mall with a few phones in cubbies and around corners, in hallways. At last, Ace found one that worked and put the call in for the duty van to come get us; now my watch read 0254.
We stepped out into the glassy, ice-covered world to wait for our ride. I blinked a few times, trying to clear the haze from my sight, but it was no use; I’d had too much damn whiskey. The orange streetlights cast a warm glow, but just above, the inky darkness pressed in. In my inebriated state, it felt like I’d stepped into a Twilight Zone episode in which I existed inside a snow-globe universe. It was so fucking cold that my breath came out in a frosty fog. The night had worn on too long as it was, and I was relieved when the duty van arrived to take us back to the BEQ.
13
We opened and then closed our bedroom door and I tossed my keys on the sink counter just inside. I worked to get my shoes and clothes off, struggling with my tight jeans. Sighing deeply, I released myself to all the emotions and brain fatigue that were now setting in after my electrically charged night at the club.
&nbs
p; “Talk to me, Tessa.”
I could hear the genuine concern in Sam’s voice. I wouldn’t say that I was mopey waiting for the duty van, or grumpy on my ride home to the barracks. I had tried to jest with the boys who had continued to heckle me, but my heart just wasn’t into it. I knew that my Jack buzz was coming down, and that was part of it, but after being away from my last duty station for so many weeks—a place I had called home for just over two years—I was simply homesick. What I really wanted to do was call Wes. I needed the familiarity and comfort of my ‘person’.
“I don’t even know where to begin, Sam,” I said with a sigh that totally deflated me… hell, it deflated the room.
“Just start where it makes sense. Tell me where your head’s at.”
I laughed. Her simple statement was so loaded that I struggled not to comment on the irony; instead, I began. “Sam, it’s… well, it’s just that I’m so exhausted. Not really from the long hours at work, or even from hanging out dancing tonight, not even from the obscene amount of drinking I’ve been doing… which is even a lot for me.” I finished removing my makeup at the sink and settled myself on the end of my bed, just a foot or so from where Sam’s feet hung over the arm rest of our dilapidated recliner.
“Mm hmm…” Sammie encouraged me as she stood to turn off our lights, and then plopped back down in the same position she’d been in. She rested the side of her head on the back of the Blue Beast.
“Okay, so nothing seems like it could stay tangible forever. First, there was Ethan for a college summer; second was Teddy. Hell, I even married him, and that didn’t last. Then, there was Ryker and his power-hips; fun to ride but dumber than a doornail to talk to. Ignacio and his magnetic eyes, whispered Spanish sweet nothings and electric merengue hips; fun, but couldn’t last; a story I will have to tell you another time.” I took a sip of my water.