Postcards Ch. 04

This time we were riding a boat with a crew. It was commanded by an Ensign Sanchez, who turned out to be SN Sanchez' uncle. Small world. Two crewmen passed our bags on board. There was also a large box, which was likely from the General. Cpt. Petrosian told me it was a pleasure to meet us and his report would be favorable. I had to tip my hat to Gen. Buehrle. Using JAG to cover a security check was smooth.

That left me with a wife to consider. Sheila took some heavy hits.

Sheila:

When I woke, Sean was gone. From there, things kept getting worse. Sean had ordered breakfast, which I did not want. I forced myself to eat, because there was no guarantee of lunch. There was a car, driven by the soldier from the airport. He kept his distance, but brought a lawyer. Captain Petrosian was there to check me out, while giving assistance with the police. The help I could use. The inspection I could do without. To give him due credit, he was good at his job.

I was not so lucky with the police. I had made a statement the night before. Daniel Ngo had gone through it carefully. Everything was factual and much of it could be verified. Several of the police refused to believe it. Stupid had a stab wound in the gut and nearly died. Even though his blood was on Big's knife, Detective Tanaka seemed to think I put it there. When that was disproved, he switched to a fictional sixth person. Supposedly, this person stabbed Stupid, broke Big's leg and disappeared. I sat quietly and let the lawyers do my talking.

Help arrived in the form of another detective. Det. Rowland piled contempt on Det. Tanaka's speculations. Before they came to blows, the Captain intervened and threw Det. Tanaka off the case. I promised pictures of our wedding to several people and we were allowed to leave. By that point, I did not know what I wanted, but curling up in a ball and crying for hours seemed a good place to start.

Thank G_d for my Teddybear. Never was my nickname more appropriate. Sean was a walking, talking comfort toy and guard dog. Our driver delivered us to a pier. The vessel—Sean warned me not to call it a boat—was commanded by a familiar face. Sure enough, the boat driver at Kwajalein was his nephew. Ens. Sanchez' face lit up when I made the connection. My day was not a total loss.

The ride out to our time share was long. Sean kept passing me bottles of water. That was the most interesting thing that happened. One piece of ocean looks very much like the next one. From time to time a ship or an island would come into sight, but always far away. My ennui had passed enough to allow serious boredom before our island was sighted. Ens. Sanchez had two crewmen loaded our bags into a power boat, which we rode to a dock. The crewmen took the bags up to our cabin, then left. At that point I had to look at Sean.

It was not that I had been ignoring him. I could sense his presence and feel his actions. They were comforting—I leaned on that—but I could not force myself to look at his face. Good heavens, I had almost killed a man. I felt freakish enough without seeing it reflected in his eyes. By their natures, such evasions only work in a crowd.

To lengthen my isolation, I focused on the island. Calling it an island was a bit much. It was more a large rock sticking out of the ocean. From where I stood, there was a high point to the left, and a sand covered tongue to the right. That was our beach, such as it was. While there was soil and sand, grass and trees, much of the island was exposed rock.

I could see three buildings and the roof of a fourth. All were built back in the folds of the big rock to the left. That made sense. It put them well above sea level and used the mass of the island to break storm winds. The cabins were not large. They seemed part of the rock, with gently sloping metal roofs and lots of glass. Toward the ocean, there were large patios, partly sheltered under the roof. Everything looked both rustic and expensive.

Sean said his piece to the Ens. Sanchez, then turned to me. It was just a glance, directing me toward cabin #4. The Navy crew had stacked our luggage on the porch. Sean pulled a note off the door, then waved me inside. I grabbed two of my bags and entered. Inside it was much cooler. The stone motif continued inside, softened by rugs and wall hangings. The living room was dark, but beyond was a small kitchen, which was brighter. To the right of the door was a closet, then a bathroom. The closed door had to be the bedroom. I stacked my bags by that door and claimed the toilet.

I had to go, but it also gave me a couple of minutes alone. This was clearly a guest bath, because there was no tub or shower. That said, it was not small. There was a nice pedestal sink and a large, well lit mirror. It would have been the perfect place to repair makeup. I was wearing only a little eye liner, but it motivated me to check the cabinet. Inside were the basics—comb, brushes, eye liner, mascara, clear lip gloss, moisturizer and aloe vera. The last two were in large bottles. I used several pumps of the moisturizer.

When I came out, Sean was not in sight, but the bedroom door was open. I went to the kitchen and looked around. At the back was a broom closet/pantry. It was well stocked for an emergency—bottled water, bins of beans, rice, sugar and flour, canned meat and vegetables, dried soups and seasonings. There was a broom and dust pan, bucket and mop, bottles of bleach and disinfectant cleaners. On the top shelf were flashlights, batteries, a charger, portable radio, a large water filter and a couple of bottle size, canteens and instruction books. In case of a hurricane, we would be set for at least a week.

Back in the kitchen, there were two small refrigerators, a freezer and an ice maker. One fridge contained basic mainland breakfast items, condiments in squeeze bottles and a covered bowl of cut melons. Taped to the melons was a note. The other refrigerator was empty, probably intended for beer and soda. The freezer contained only a bottle of vodka and some pizza rolls. Out in the living room was a table, with a huge basket of fruit. At least we would not starve. Next to the fruit was the box I had seen on the boat.

Sean chose that moment to return from the master suite. He picked up the box, opened it and set it on the counter. Inside was lunch and a rolled parcel. Sean handed me the Italian rolls and cold cuts, then unrolled the parcel. It contained a folding branch saw, a multi-tool and three skeins of parachute cord—red, white and blue. I did not know what to expect, but that was not it. It was like receiving gift wrapped copy paper.

Sean had given me responsibility for lunch. We had bread, cheese and cold cuts, fresh fruit and filtered water. That would work. I debated soup, since there was a microwave, but decided to keep it simple. One of the refrigerators contained a variety of sauces, spreads and dressings, some already open. Since these were vinegar based, like pickles, yellow mustard and Italian salad dressing, I could deal with open. Mayo was in individual serving packets, which made me laugh.

I split two rolls, piled them with cheese, deli meat and a sliced avocado. I would have liked onion and tomato, but no joy. The bowl of cut fruit had a note. "Barb" left it for us. I added some papaya, bananas and white pineapple. For dressing I used honey and fresh squeezed lemon juice. It was not Club Med, but it would do. I cut the sandwich and slid it onto a plate, wishing for chips. Potato chips are the downfall of many diets and they were one of my weaknesses. The irony was almost enough to make me smile—almost.

Sean did not give me time to appreciate my humor, He grabbed his sandwich and handed me the note from the door. We were invited to visit cabin #6. There were six cabins on the island, so that would be the last one to the right. The note was signed Don and Barb. That would be Barb from the fruit basket. I could handle her, them, whatever. If Sean noticed my turmoil, he gave no sign.

Instead he ate his sandwich, drank his water, snarfed the fruit salad and generally behaved like a guy in an emotional situation. There are worse things. There have been worse lunches. After he finished, he reminded me of the tropical sun and headed for the master suite. The guest bathroom held no sunblock, so I followed Sean into the bedroom. I was immediately reminded I had married a CEO. Sean said nothing, because his message was in plain sight.

On the bed was my swimsuit, shorts, one of Sean's shirts and sandals. Next to that was a similar outfit, male version—swimshorts, polo shirt, sandals. Next to that was the flogger. My stars.

Sean:

I love competent subordinates, but occasionally it can be a pain. They ask questions I don't want to answer. Sheila was the same, only more so. Her questions were subtle, often non-verbal. Sheila was non-verballing all over my day, not that it was a good one to start with. Once we cast off from Hawaii, I could spend some time reading my message queue. I was hard to concentrate while Sheila was having trouble coping with almost killing Bozo #2. The police had given me his name, but I persisted in thinking of him as a clown.

I would bet a tall stack of money that Sheila did not know his name. I would bet the company that she could chart his movements to centimeters. If there was a more spatially aware person than Sheila, I have never heard of, much less met, him or her. Sheila had used a simple throw. I could see it replaying behind her eyes. To answer this, I had the Army's eternal wisdom—when in doubt, put 'em to work.

The obvious thing was lunch, so I passed Sheila the food from Gen. Buehrle. I asked for food and he sent lunch. It was something to remember. My other request was handled better. The saw was perfect for branches or bamboo. I asked for a knife and he sent a high end multi-tool. The lashing was 550 cord, in flag colors. Possibilities abounded. I decided to give the cord to Sheila and scrounge something else. Before I could think further, Sheila was laying out lunch.

It was good. The sandwiches cried for tomato, but there was none available. The fruit salad needed only poppy seeds and a carved watermelon to be served on a cruise ship. Very nice. Almost as welcome were the tall tumblers of ice and water. Lord I was parched. Sheila drank her water, but picked at her half sandwich and small plate of fruit. If she was going to have a baby, that would not do.

To find a topic for discussion, I handed her the note from the front door. It was a simple invitation to visit cabin #6, signed Barb and Don. Sheila handed back a note from the kitchen, signed Barb. Thus agreed, I set to clearing the table, while Sheila covered or wrapped the uneaten food. She was done before I found the trash. Rinsing the dishes, I left them in the sink.

Cabin #6 was the one closest to the ocean on one side. That put it on the other side of the spit that served as a beach. Even from a distance, I could tell that #6 was more "lived in" than our cabin. Don and Barb met us at the front porch.

Danté and Barbara Micelli were the property managers. Their territory included three other islands. Don suggested deep water fishing in the first two minutes. Barb rolled her eyes. At a guess, Don loved his boat and loved to play captain. I begged off, pleading seasickness. This brought a more sympathetic look from Barb. Kitten did not miss the by play. She and Barb went to talk girl talk, while Don talked fishing at me.

Of all that he said, the thing that sounded most fun was shore casting. He told me to meet him at five AM, while watching closely for my reaction. I called him a damned DI and we were good. Drill Instructors are universally hated, except in hindsight. I said enough to establish my ability to do unpleasant things for fishing, which is all that matters to a fisherman.

After that, Don brought me up to speed on our cabin. The island had no fresh water. A supply was delivered twice a week, plus there were rainwater cisterns. The upshot was that Sheila and I could not use our bath room shower for the rest of the day and very little in the morning. However, there was a rainwater shower on one wall of the house.

Don turned surprisingly shy when he spoke of it. When I inquired he showed me the solar heater he had built for his own cabin. It was the sort of thing I might have built for science fair—blackened PVC pipe zig-zagging across a black painted board. It didn't look like much, but the water was too hot to take straight. Afternoon sun in the tropics is brutal. This was the best use I had yet seen for it.

This led to Don showing me other ways he had improved on the original design. For example, each cabin had a built in outdoor kitchen, with gas grill, gas burners and a small under-counter refrigerator. Done added a washtub and charcoal grill/smoker. There was an ice maker inside the cabin, so the washtub would double as a beer cooler. One of the nearby islands produced chunk charcoal. Don could order and have it delivered. For the moment, he gave me a bucketful and a couple of steaks.

Grocery deliveries were done by a store on the nearest large island. Most of his residents took a helicopter to that island and boated over. We were his first delivery via US Navy. He did not ask for the story, which made me think it had value. This did not apply to the steaks. A previous occupant had left them behind. Don was willing to use perishable food, but frozen and canned he recycled through the various cabins. I asked if he had any rope to recycle.

That led to another conversation. This part of the Pacific was relatively calm, but storms happen. He grilled me on how much I knew of the emergency supplies and procedures. I was glad I had skimmed the manual he left in the bedroom. It put me ahead of most of the previous residents. Don filled me in on details I had missed, such as the canned goods in the pantry and the generator on the patio. Full alternate power was designed in, but the fuel had to be maintained and the generator started manually.

Don was very dismissive of most of the cabin residents. They would be unprepared in a real emergency. He and Barb were nursemaids to 15 timeshare cabins. I was only mildly surprised to learn that Barb was a licensed midwife and that her services had been required, twice. Don did not comment on Sheila and I, which led me to believe the jury was still out. You have to know military speak to understand the level of the compliment.

Sheila:

Sean showed me the flogger, but did nothing about it. Typical. I have used the technique many times. With Sean, showing the possibilities was as natural as breathing. People think of him as blunt, but he assumes everyone wants to know what is going on, even if it is unpleasant. All I could infer was that the time was not right.

We went to see Don and Barb. They lived in the second cabin from us, on the other side of the little beach. Like much of the island, their lot was rocky and bare. However, there was a string of raised garden plots and a coconut palm. The tree may have been natural, but the beds were carefully tended. For some reason, the plots made me think of Christine. Gardening was an area she would excel.

Barbara did not give me time to look around. She exclaimed at my skin tone and dragged me into the house. Once inside her attitude changed. Her questions were sharp and came quickly to a point. Sean is several years older and very pushy. Barbara wanted to know if I wanted to be alone with him.

It was sweet. I told her about Sean taking me to the concert, about how he almost carried me to bed more than once, how he gave me the shirt off his back. That stopped her. Like many people, Barbara could see Sean's forceful side. I talked bout his protective urges. That led me to our time with the police, then to the attempted mugging. For some reason my description made her eyes go wide. Before I could ask, she smothered me with a hug. We had a good cry, my first in years.

After we dried our eyes, Barbara was all business. She was Mama hen. I was one of her chicks and Mama wanted to know everything. As quickly as I could manage, I told her of our meeting, working together, the wedding and the round-about trip to this island. I mentioned working as a fitness trainer, to which she nodded. I told her Sean was from old money, she nodded again. When I said that Sean said I would be famous, she looked surprised. I did not get surprised until I told her it was already happening. I had her google the wedding.

Her reaction was unusual. She asked why I had a child as my Maid of Honor. In retrospect, I am surprised no one else had asked. Perhaps they assumed it was a family thing. While I tried to grapple with some way to explain my relationship with Christine, Barbara waved it off. It would wait til we had more time to talk. She assumed Sean and Don would be doing something together in the morning. The two of us would get together for tea. She winked at me while she led me to her bathroom.

In one of her cabinets, she had every female product a drug store would sell, plus a few they cannot or will not stock. I quickly waved off all the contraceptives, which caused Barbara to stop and look at me closely. She asked, "Are you trying?" I looked her straight in the eye and nodded. "Are you...?" I bit my lip, which I never do. Barbara hugged me again, "Good Lord child, don't you know how to take things slow?" I had to laugh.

Once she had established that we had only been trying for a few days, Barbara went into lecture mode. It made me think of Francine and Siobhan. My face must have shown something, because I had to explain what, and who, I was thinking about. Her curiosity satisfied, she went back into her prenatal lecture. It was no surprise when Sean told me she was a midwife. Barbara never mentioned it herself.

Eventually the subject turned to sex. I started blushing almost immediately. Barbara only grinned and kept talking. After a couple of minutes, she asked me a simple anatomy question. When I answered that, more technical questions followed. Barbara's grin disappeared, replaced by a frown. I tried to pass it off as fitness related, but it was no sale. Finally she asked me how I could be so clinical about men's genitalia and not my own. Once again, Barbara waved a deep question aside.

Instead, she asked if I liked to be tied up. I nodded. Barbara nodded as if this made perfect sense. She went through a list of the lighter side of role playing. I did not have to nod. My face color was answering. Then I discovered something. While the embarrassment was arousing, Barbara's amusement was the opposite. I was no one's toy, not even Sean's. Barbara noticed the change. For once, she did not guess the reason. Instead, she asked if I had ever tried the other side. I let her see Cynthia. Oops.

Barbara turned pale under her deep tan. Before she could turn and run, I caught her hands. She jerked a couple of times, then stood still, eyes downcast. How had I missed it? In my best calming voice I told her to breathe, relax, there was nothing wrong. When I told her to look at me, her eyes came slowly up. One tsk had her looking straight at me and trembling. In a way, I did not blame her.

Subs are an odd group. They are very defensive and suspicious of outsiders, with valid reason. It is still possible to lose your children by being outed. My practice was possibly unique, because I made video of everything. It started with the judge. For a long time, he was my only client and he wanted video. New clients came as referrals, so they knew how I did things. There is an old saying, if you cannot get rid of it, it's a feature. My service featured video, later adding stills for framing.

I had seen Barbara's look many times before. Her next action would tell a great deal, so I waited. In a D/s relationship, it is always about trust. Our first session, I trusted Sean far beyond good sense. Christine trusted me with her life. Barbara needed to decide if she could trust me. After a few panted breaths, she came around. We fell into each others arms. It turned humorous when she slapped her forehead and said, "No wonder you know so much about cocks and balls. Professional interest." I had to agree.