Sister Golden Hair Delight Ch. 24

Chapter 24

New Lives

Tuesday, August 9th

Alessa....

It was such a beautiful day in Southern California. There had been rain earlier during the week and now enough wind had arrived to remove most of the smog lying low on the water's horizon and it seemed like I could see all the way to China.

I was gaining weight.

I was gaining too much weigh to just be the result of eating those stupid M&Ms.

I was gaining too much weight from just eating those stupid Oreos... or, the ice cream, for that matter.

I was gaining too much weight just thinking of food.

I was gaining too much weight so I began walking up the trail twice a day for more exercise than I had been getting from the morning run.

Although I pretended to be alone enjoying the hills above Malibu, I was continually aware that just a few feet back was Philip, watching my every move and always poised to... to what? to grab me if I stumbled? to put his arms around me if I fell? to talk to me when I wanted conversation?

I couldn't understand why I was thinking of him at all. He was my bodyguard, nothing more, ready to protect me from rattlesnakes, from coyotes, from some intruder that impossibly got through the barriers first put up when Jimmy bought the property.

He was head of security for the Corporation and was responsible for far more than just walking me around the property. Who was I to second-guess Jimmy's choice of guardian?

Ever since what happened to Jimmy, I had a harder attitude toward life and people in general. Philip was a tool to be used, when I needed as I needed. Anything else would be unthinkable... unthinkable... unthinkable.

Later, when he was responsible for carrying snacks and drinks in a small cooler, two others joined us to back him up, what with his hands full and all.

I discovered later that these morning and afternoon walks were the cause of it all.

**********

I sat on the bench next to Philip, listening to the water of the vernal stream gurgle by and refusing to give up hope, however small, that he would waken soon. 'He just has to,' I told myself over and over each night as I prayed... Even so, in my lonesome heart I knew the longer he slept, the less likely he would come back to me and I would be all alone again.

Even working with Maria and my small but growing group of women, I was beginning to feel the effects of overseeing the Corporation as Jimmy's condition seemed to deteriorate further and further each day that passed.

'The actual work isn't so bad,' I kept telling myself but it just seemed like I was going through the motions for no real reason... but, too many people are depending on this company.

Although not a Catholic like he was, I knew I was giving in to the sin of despair, by tradition the sole sin that cannot be forgiven and damned absolutely in my lonely life.

Finishing my small dinner of baked salmon and sweet potatoes that Philip had brought me, I walked back into the building knowing full well the doctor would be angry with me. My own health was deteriorating... I could feel it. All the vitamins I was taking were no longer helping and my fatigue never left. I was so tired... so tired all the time.

With Maria's help, we had just been awarded seven new military contracts for satellites. At the same time, a large office building on Hawthorne Blvd. in Torrance had been bought, refurbished and fully leased.

And, all the while, except for Maria, I had no one to share it all with.

Each night, I continued to read Genesis from my Bible to Jimmy as he lay there but I was ashamed to admit my faith was faltering.

I could see no way out of my personally imposed prison of depression. If misery loved company, then I wasn't even good enough for that.

The late afternoon sun was warming the hills just a little too much and I still had hours of work ahead of me even after I tell Mary to go 'home,' even if it is only a couple of floors upward it's still out of the office.

"Philip, please take me home." My protector stood up and reached out for my hand, easily lifting me from the bench and we walked down the hill back to the main building.

**********

Morning, August 10th Medical Clinic, Crowell Corporation, Malibu

"Thank you for seeing me on short notice, Doctor Mayes."

"Don't ever think of it, Ms. Lane. What can I do for this morning?"

I was nervous and embarrassed for this was the first moment when I actually considered that I was pregnant with Jimmy's child.

"I think I might be pregnant..." My voice dropped off as if being silent could make my fear go away.

She looked at me, really not sure what to say or do. By this time it had become common knowledge that Jimmy and I had been sleeping together before the accident.

"Have you," she asked, "done a pregnancy test, yourself?"

"No, I'm just not feeling well, nauseous, gaining weight... you know and Jimmy and I have been..."

"Intimate?"

I blushed and could only nod my head. As wild as my few days with him had been I was still uneasy talking about it with someone.

"Well, why don't we start with the urine test and see where we go from there..." She handed me a small cup and lid and indicated where the examination bathroom was. "I'll wait for you right here, Ms. Lane."

I walked down the short hallway to the bathroom and closed the door... closed the door on what was probably the last moment of my 'single' life with its carefree lifestyle, if you could consider my life carefree.

I brought it back to her and waited for the results. She took the little test kit and put it into the cup and we waited.

"Well, Ms. Lane, it would seem that you are indeed pregnant. My first question has to be, what do you want to do? I know what's happening with the general has to be tearing you up inside.

"You, of course, have several options, the most obvious being to have the child. There are 'alternatives,' if you wish to discuss them."

As scared as I was, there was no question in my heart that I would keep our child.

"I want this baby." I tried to sound as brave as I could but instead broke down and cried. She held me and let me cry as long as I could.

When I had calmed down, we talked woman to woman about it.

"Ms. Lane..."

"Doctor, please call me Alessa. I would appreciate it... Ms. Lane is in my office but here, I'm just a scared girl."

"All right, Alessa... I believe that we want to keep this quiet for as long as we can until we know whether or not you will have a healthy pregnancy and then there's the question of..."

She stopped talking, immediately knowing that she had crossed an emotional line without permission.

"I'm sorry, Alessa, I didn't..."

I was comforting her, saying, "I understand, please don't worry about hurting my feelings. They've been destroyed already."

"I'm going to do everything myself so that it will just be me and you knowing about it. I'm going to take a little blood, now so that I have a sample for a better test and then we'll go through some simple questions."

I could see she was trying to be as gentle as possible inserting the needle but I still jumped a little, more from uneasiness than anything else.

Blood pressure, weight, height, pulse rate all went down into her laptop.

"Is this your first pregnancy?"

My shocked face answered that for her.

"OK, now this is probably a little embarrassing but unfortunately we've all got to go through this at one time or another. Let me help you undress and then you can get back on the table."

As each piece of clothing came off, she folded it and put it on one of the chairs. It had been a long while since I had been in a gynecologist's office and so it was embarrassing time again for me. She helped me back up and hop onto the table and put my feet into the stirrups.

I was thinking that it was like a medieval torture device for young maidens when I remembered I was pretty much in the same position the last time I had been with Jimmy.

She moved between my legs, looked closely and inserted a plastic-covered finger inside.

"Alessa... I'm looking to see if the coloration of your vulva and vaginal walls are showing an increased blood flow and they do look more purplish than if you were not."

Fingers went inside which would have been terribly erotic except that she wasn't my Jimmy and I was shivering inside.

"I'm now working up into your cervix to see if it's starting to soften some." Her fingers moved farther inside and then I could feel them touch my cervix.

Only twice before had I ever felt anything there and both times were with Jimmy when I had asked him to take my as roughly as he could.

When I mentioned it to the doctor, she told me that meant I wasn't stimulated enough at the time and so my vagina hadn't lengthened sufficiently for sex.

Imagine my surprise when I heard that. For a long time, men were saying how they were able to hit the cervix with their dicks and now it turns out they were just lousy lovers whose women weren't properly readied. Ha, ha... I had to laugh, it was so funny.

"I'm glad you are finding something funny about this," she said to me.

"Oh, Doctor, it's just that all this time men were saying how long they were because they could hit the cervix and now it just meant they were lousy in the sack."

With her fingers still inside me, she put her other hand on my stomach to feel if I had an enlarged uterus.

"Yes, my dear, you are going to have his baby. Congratulations?"

"Oh, yes, thank you."

We spoke some more about this and that and to my surprise she said I would visit each morning before anything else at the office and have a daily monitoring.

"I don't want anything to happen to either of you, enough sadness has already happened."

Was she preparing me for the worse? Was there something she knew that she wasn't telling me?

**********

Early morning, Friday, August 10th Barbers' Point Hospital

Beverly....

Someone left the morning paper in the deserted basement cafeteria and walking by, I picked it up. Reading while I ate her early morning breakfast before reporting in, I was mostly glancing at the photos. Not interested in the front page story of two container ships missing in the Pacific I just skimmed the stories, finally coming to the local news.

Right in the middle of the page was a large color photo of the governor doing something with some woman in a simple white dress... then I looked closely at the picture. "Oh, no! Oh, no! Ohhhhh Nooooooooooo!" Leaving her food behind, I grabbed the paper and ran wildly up the stairs to the ER. "Look! Look! You won't believe it! She did get married and with the governor and everything!"

The young nurses crowded around as I frantically began to read out loud. "Governor Kilani presided at the civil union of Sayomi Nakamura, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Kaito Nakamura, and Lieutenant Robert Osborne, USMC, a Marine Corps fighter pilot. The couple will reside in the Oahu area."

I continued to read but the jealous women had heard enough. One nurse, so angry at the turn of events, snatched the paper and ripped it into shreds all over the hallway floor before walking away muttering to herself.

**********

Captain Susan Ricci, USN

Their supervisor, walking in on the end of the situation, decided to immediately suspend several of them for unprofessional conduct as soon as she returned to her office. These young girls think the world revolves around them and life ends at 30. Wait a minute! Suspension is too good for these witches, I'm transferring their asses out of here.

"You asked for us?" The three young and stupid nurses stood in the doorway, waiting for my permission to enter.

I waved them in but did not indicate they could sit. "Close the door." After finishing what I was writing, which was just some doodling small circles on a piece of scratch-paper, I looked up. "Just who the fuck do you think you are? That's what I God damned want to know."

One made the mistake and started talking, but the stare she received shut her up.

"You three seem to have a problem with something in the newspaper and you! You left it scattered all over the floor! Who was supposed to clean that up? Was this what you were all worried about?"

I held up a copy of the morning's paper folded back to the picture of Sayomi and the governor. "Well?"

"Yes, ma'am..." The lieutenants were afraid, now, I could smell the blood in the water... they had never seen me so angry.

"I was going to just suspend you three for a couple of days but on thinking about it, that's not good enough. I'm transferring you three to other bases."

The angry woman that I was passed out three manila envelopes.

"How dare you act the way you have about Nakamura. She's the best nurse here and did nothing but try and teach you how to be a good nurse, how to recognize immediate problems in the ER, how to be a good person with the patients and their families.

"All you were worried about was who you were going to fuck next. You three are everything what's wrong with your generation, so damn self-centered you think the world owes you just because you can breathe. You're expected to report in day after tomorrow. Clear out your lockers and leave immediately. Security will escort you out. Dismissed."

Beverly....

We turned around and saw four MPs waiting for us. We walked down the hallway very slowly, suddenly realizing that our wonderful lives in Hawaii were over.

Leaving the hospital, we went to a nearby bar and in a corner booth, we stared at the three envelopes on the table, too afraid to open them.

"We are so screwed..." I said. "I don't want to open it." I stared at the envelope, sipping her drink. "Ah, fuck it." I swallowed what was left in the glass in one gulp and tore it open. "Oh, shit... I need another drink."

I walked unsteadily back to the bartender. "Gimme a double... hell, make that a double double... neat." Throwing down my credit card, I waited for the drink.

Charlie....

Darrell and I were watching these three Navy nurses downing the drinks and getting blasted off their asses. The blonde, who we found out later was named Beverly, returned to find the other two had opened their orders and had their heads down on the table.

"This sucks... goddamn that Nakamura or whatever the hell her name is now. That bitch has ruined my life. I've got to go to Attu, Alaska, wherever the hell that is."

The middle nurse pulled out her Blackberry and called up the internet. "Let's see... Attu... holy shit! The place is the western most island in the fucking Aleutians... that's way worse than where I'm going, goddamn desert in the middle of goddamn Nevada. At least there's those hot-shot flyboys from Top Gun. Still, the fucking desert. Shit! Where are you going?"

The remaining woman didn't look up. "Gitmo... with the goddamn Muslim terrorists. I am so screwed."

They had been banished to the three worst possible naval stations for a young woman.

"More drinks... I need another drink. Now!"

"When do we have to leave, anyway? I didn't bother to look. Lemme see those orders."

We could see the blonde was rapidly falling into a misty drunkenness but she was still awake enough to find the date.

"Jesus Christ! We... well, I... have to leave tonight."

The brunette stared out their orders, looking for the date. "Shit! Me, too."

The last one just moaned, laying her head on the table.

The blonde looked around the bar and seeing us at the bar counter, walked unsteadily over.

"Hey, boys... how... how are you? I'm leaving tonight to go to fucking Alaska. Do you think you could give me a good time and then take me to the airport?"

We looked her over and even as drunk as she was, she still looked good to us.

"What about your friends over there?"

"Oh, them... let me go see..." She balanced herself on the chair backs and carefully walked across what must have been a spinning floor. "Hey... whoa!" She grabbed the chair and collapsed into it. "I'm gonna party with those guys before I leave... you wanna come with us?"

"No. I'm gonna be sick," one moaned and ran out the door. We could hear her vomiting the drinks and everything else on the asphalt parking lot and then saw her through the back door falling to her knees in the smelly mess.

"I'll stay with her. Goodbye, Beverly. I had fun while it lasted. Goodbye." She got up and went outside to see to her friend.

We went over and almost carried the blonde to our car. Pushing her into the back seat, we drove looking found a motel somewhere outside of Pearl.

I went inside to rent a room and returned with a key, motioning to Darrell to drive around to the other side of the building.

After unlocking the room door, we looked around and seeing no one, carried her into the room. The door closed behind us with a heavy sounding clack and we looked at the sleeping woman on the bed.

"Want to try and wake her up?" I asked, unbuttoning her nurse's uniform and gazing upon her breasts. I reached out and touched her.

"What for? This makes it easier, anyways." Darrell started unzipping his pants.

"We are taking her to the airport, right?" I asked. "It wouldn't seem right to just leave her here."

"Yeah, I guess so, especially since the other two know what we look like. Yeah, we'll take her, just as soon as we're done here."

We finished pulling her clothes off and flipped a coin to see who went first. Darrell won the toss, took his pants off and rubbing his hand over her ass, told me to look if there was any shampoo in the bathroom.

'Ah, fuck,' I thought, 'he's going to get his wish.'

**********

Evening, Friday, August 10th Honolulu International Airport

Welcome to the land of ice and snow where the cold winds blow

True to our promise, Darrell and I brought Beverly to the airport, and I walked her in to the airline ticket counter. On the way over, I had looked at her traveling orders and knew what to do.

"Good evening. This is my sister, Beverly Lismonde. She is scheduled on your 8 PM flight to Anchorage. Our mother has just died and the Navy is sending her home.

"Her doctor gave her some pills to calm her down and said she'll sleep the whole flight. I can help you get her on board, if you wish."

"Thank you... but the Homeland Security... you know, they will not allow that. We will take care of her... don't worry, she'll be fine. I'll call for a wheelchair. Just a minute, please."

While the woman called for a wheelchair, I held Beverly up. She was asleep, lightly snoring. When the wheelchair arrived, I helped the attendant seat her and strap her in.

Putting all her papers under her folded arms, I made a show of kissing her goodbye and watched as she was wheeled across the ticket area toward the terminal gate.

I left the terminal and waited while Darrell was still circling the parking lot. Waving him down, I got into the car and we left as quickly as we could without drawing attention.

"Dude... that was the finest afternoon I've had in a long time. I wonder if she'll remember any of it?" I had a smug, self-satisfied grin on my face.

"Who cares? She's gone to the land of ice and snow, never to return. From what I could see, the other two are gone also, probably to never meet again. Boy, she had a nice ass. I've been wanting to do that again for a long time."

**********

Five miles above the Pacific heading north

Beverly....

The next morning, I woke up with the worst hangover I ever had. "Ooooo, my fucking head." My head felt like it was full of pillow stuffing straining to get out.

The woman sitting next to me spit out her breakfast orange juice. "Language!"

I looked at her through blood-shot eyes. "Lady, just mind your own fucking business." I then registered a deep pain, and put my hand between my legs. "Ooooo, what happened to me? Oh, shit."