No More Perfect Kisses

I wistfully thought about how that would be but realized I couldn't do that. I needed to belong, which was just the opposite of the type of life Glory lived. Maybe Glory wistfully thought about my life and realized it wasn't for her, but I'd never find out. I visited Denny's one evening, and Glory wasn't there. I left disappointed but tried again for the next three evenings. That's when I realized that Glory had moved on, as was her restless way. I wondered where she had gone but just shook it off. "Let it go," I told myself. I never saw her again.

October 1979

Thanks to the distraction that meeting Glory provided, I stopped spending every minute of my life in the lab, class, or homework. I decided that life was too short and I should explore the wonders around me. I may have to be celibate, but that didn't mean I couldn't celebrate life. I vowed to spend more time away from my work. I resolved to explore or visit a new place at least once a month for the rest of my time in Albuquerque.

I heard about the Hot Air Balloon Festival held annually in Albuquerque. I had seen hot-air balloons practically every day since I'd been here, wondering what it'd be like to be in one. I decided to go to the festival this year and maybe even ride in one of the balloons.

One of the activities I found to do was taking the tram up to the top of Sandia Mountain. Sandia Mountain towered more than 4,000 feet over Albuquerque. The city itself ranged anywhere from 4,000 feet above sea level at the Rio Grande River to 6,000 feet above sea level at the base of the mountain. The tram takes you up the nearly vertical face of the mountain to the top, where a restaurant and ski resort reside.

The restaurant served excellent food and provided a panoramic view off to the west. The remains of three extinct volcanoes were visible, nearly eroded away, except for the solid lava pipes that had once led down to the shared magma chamber deep underground. You could see almost all the way to Grants, New Mexico, located about 60 miles west of Albuquerque. Due to the difference in altitude, you could see street lights coming on in the city below while the sun was still shining on top of the mountain.

Old Town was where the original Albuquerque settlement was founded by the Spanish. It was a place of narrow streets and adobe buildings that held little shops that sold Native American pottery and jewelry. I especially loved the turquoise jewelry that the local Pueblo residents crafted. I came to love the carved turquoise jewelry that Robert Eustace made. His pieces were in high demand, so they were expensive but worth it for the detail and beauty of his work. I learned a lot about how turquoise is mined and worked into jewelry while browsing the shops.

I looked forward to visiting the Hot Air Balloon Festival this year. I have often seen the hot air balloons rising above the early morning mist along the Rio Grande River. Since the balloons were not really steerable (although you could change altitude to catch a breeze blowing in a different direction), they occasionally drifted onto the base. The danger was more to the pilot/passengers in the balloon since they were getting close to an active runway.

A hot air balloon almost drifted over Manzano once. If the pilot hadn't dumped the hot air and nearly crashed just outside the perimeter fence, I'm sure it would have been shot down. Manzano was a heavily guarded nuclear weapons storage depot. The guards had shoot-to-kill orders if anything breached the fences.

I was amazed at the diverse balloons at the festival. One balloon was shaped like an ice cream cone, and one looked like a tea kettle. I managed to get a ride on a normal-looking hot air balloon. It was incredible how quiet it was as you floated in the air with the current. The only sound that broke the silence was the heater whenever the air in the balloon needed heating. I enjoyed the ride and promised myself I'd do it again someday.

May 1981

As much as I loved working at the Weapons Lab, it was time to start looking into working on another assignment. I looked for posts at other scientific laboratories, such as Lincoln Labs at Hanscom AFB, near Boston, MA.

I got a call out of the blue from Brigadier General Marshal Mann, the commander of the Foreign Technology Division (FTD) located at Wright-Patterson AFB, near Dayton, OH. After introductions, he told me he had heard good things about me. He was interested in recruiting me for an assignment for which he felt I was the perfect person. Apparently, Colonel Kirk had bragged about me to him, and he was intrigued enough to look at my career.

I was gobsmacked but rallied quickly. I told General Mann I was ready to start working on another assignment and would be happy to hear his proposal. He immediately scheduled a call for me with Colonel Michael Travis, who had the opening in his group. After the call ended, I sat there for a moment while collecting my thoughts before asking around about FTD and what kind of work they did.

I quickly learned that FTD was a black hole that nobody talked about, so there wasn't a lot of information to glean about it. I discovered that some of the work done at FTD involved researching technologies our enemies and even our allies (since they could one day be enemies) were developing. This intrigued me, so I looked forward to talking to Colonel Travis.

Over the next three weeks, I got to talk to Colonel Travis several times. He wasn't able to tell me much until I showed up and got my security clearance upgraded. What he did tell me convinced me that I wanted the assignment. Colonel Travis approved a Temporary DutY Assignment (TDY) as an added incentive before I reported to him at WPAFB. The TDY would be to the Symposium on Infrared Sensors sponsored by General Motors Tank Division at Michigan Technical University in Houghton, Michigan. He felt it would be an excellent introduction to the work I'd be doing for him when I reported for duty.

With that good news and my orders being worked for my new assignment, I celebrated my birthday. My group threw me a birthday party, and I actually enjoyed myself for once. I wished I had someone by my side to love and hold, but I had vowed to set that part of my life aside and work on my Air Force career. Based on everything I'd accomplished so far, it was a fair trade. The contacts I'd developed, and everything I'd learned could almost make up for the loneliness in my life. However, I was still young, only twenty-eight, so I'd still have time enough for love if someone came along that took my fancy.

June 1981

I had finalized my new assignment to FTD and the TDY along the way. I wrapped up all of my work on the deformable mirror program. I handed it off to a freshly minted 2nd Lieutenant on his first assignment, just like I had been nearly four years ago. I finished packing my belongings, getting the shippers to pick them up, and hauling my car. After locking up my place and turning in the keys, I went to SATO to get my tickets. I got a room at the VOQ for the night since I wasn't flying out until the next day. I'd fly to Houghton, MI, and then to Dayton, OH. I took the shuttle over to the airport to catch my flight. As I waited in the terminal, I reflected on the first four years of my Air Force career. I had enjoyed my assignments here at Kirtland AFB, even though I had been celibate for four years.

The flight was uneventful, with a stop in Detroit before switching to a prop plane for the short hop up to Houghton. I looked out the window as we flew out over Lake Superior before turning to land at the Houghton County Memorial Airport. After four years in the desert, next to Sandia Mountain, I was amazed at how flat and green Michigan was. After picking up my luggage on the tarmac, I caught a shuttle going to the university. After checking that the shuttle would be back later to take me to my hotel, I went in to get registered.

I had just finished getting registered and was standing off to the side, wondering when the shuttle would get here to take me to the hotel. As I looked around, my eyes fell on a tall blonde woman in uniform standing in line, waiting to get registered. Our eyes met across the room, and my heart went to my throat as I peered into those blue-gray eyes.

As we held each other's gazes, I couldn't help but think about Sam. I momentarily wondered where she was and what she was doing. The woman broke our gaze as she turned to get registered, so I looked away to get myself back under control. The sadness I felt while thinking about Sam and how much I had missed her over the last six years went through my mind. I thought about those kisses and how perfect they had been.

I pushed those thoughts back into the closet as I watched the Air Force officer walk away from the registration table. She was looking around intently, hopefully looking for me. Once again, our gazes locked, and as she moved toward me, I moved forward to meet her.

As she approached me, I had to tilt my head up. She smiled a beautiful smile, extended her hand to me, and said, in a sultry voice that reminded me again of Sam, "Hi! I'm Alex Summers.

I thought, "Oh, this could be so much fun." I smiled back, took her hand, and said, "Hello, Alex. My name is Virginia Hanratty ...."

Epilogue

I sighed as I closed my laptop. It was getting late, and Judy had already gone up to bed after looking in on Betty. We were both worried about her. All of this COVID nonsense was getting to her. She hated wearing a mask because of all the mask mandates, and when she got a chance to go out, it made things such a hassle. I knew she missed Joe, as we all did, and I was sure it affected her mind.

I was checking out some sites for doctors to treat elderly people who have situational dementia due to depression from isolation because of COVID restrictions. I was hoping to find someone who'd do house calls, and I did find one who'd do that. I planned to call them tomorrow after talking it over with Judy.

As I thought about that, my eyes traveled to a picture of Alex she had sent me when she was promoted to Colonel. She looked so happy in the photograph. I brushed my fingertips on the picture as I remembered how we had first met almost forty-one years ago.

Thinking about Alex made me think of Sam. She had been my first love, and I learned that I could love another woman. For a moment, I wondered how her life had played out. The last time I saw or heard from her was that day in May over forty-seven years ago. Did she find happiness and love? "I hope so," I thought with fondness. I thought again about the other women I had loved: Alex, Bonnie, Megan, and now Judy.

I smiled at the memories before I looked over and saw Matthew's picture. He was smiling so widely in his Army uniform, looking so handsome. My eyes burned with unshed tears as I thought about how proud he had been to be commissioned as an officer in the Army. Then, September 11, 2001, happened, and his unit was one of the first to be deployed into Afghanistan the following year.

I lightly touched his face with my fingertips as the tears started flowing. For all these years, I'd comforted myself with the thought that at least his life had been given for a good cause. Now, nearly twenty years later, I wasn't so sure. Then, last August, with the ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan that occurred, leaving it to the same monsters that we had gone in there in the first place to remove after determining that they had supported Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden.

I remembered the pictures of the suicide bombing that killed thirteen of our finest and wounded many more. The whole withdrawal was botched from the beginning. Giving up the defensible airbase at Bagram and retreating to an exposed location in Kabul airport was the epitome of stupidity. It couldn't have gone worse if it had been meant to be a disaster from the start. Yes, we needed to get out of Afghanistan. In fact, we should have been out of there well before then, but it could have been handled much better than it was.

As the tears fell, I realized that my pride in my military career and what I had accomplished despite being a lesbian when homosexuality was forbidden had probably clouded my thinking. For forty-two years, I had been a willing participant in the Military-Industrial complex that President Eisenhower had tried to warn us about. So the blood was on my hands as much as anybody else's. Why did the politicians take advantage of the patriots who loved their country and spend the precious blood of those patriots for their own political ambitions and then just discard us when the political winds changed? Why do we let them?

I angrily dashed the tears out of my eyes as I got up and headed toward the stairs. "Enough of that," I thought as I ascended the stairs. I couldn't help but think back to that October day on the beach when I saw those planes high up in the sky. Did the men flying those planes realize that if they got the "Go" command, they were basically flying a suicide mission? Before they geared up and boarded their planes to fly their missions, did they wonder if this would be the last time they had got to hold their loved ones?

I wondered what they would have thought as they fought their way through Soviet airspace to reach their targets. If they succeed in their mission, where would they go? More than likely, all that was left back home was a nuclear wasteland if they even managed to get back there. Would they even try to make it back, or would they decide to fly the bombs into the target to ensure they didn't miss? I thanked God that we never had to find that out.

I sighed and made a conscious effort to push those thoughts out of my mind as I reached the top of the stairs. With a smile on my face, I headed into our bedroom. Judy was waiting for me, and that would be comfort enough ...

Afterword:

This is where it all began for those who have already read the rest of the 'Virginiaverse.' For those new to the 'Virginiaverse,' please read "Throwin' Pennies in the Bay" to see what happens next. When you get to "Your Silver Nights and Golden Days," you'll notice that some of the details in this story are repeated there. I wrote that story first, so I had to introduce the readers to Virginia.

Please read my guide, "How to Read the Virginiaverse," in the 'How To' category. It will tell you the correct order to read the stories in the 'Virginiaverse.' I didn't write the stories chronologically, so you can't go by the publication date.