The Improbable Tenant

Cathy was a gracious hostess despite her reluctance to allow a man, particularly Paul, her tenant, for heaven's sake, within arm's reach. It's just too soon, she told herself. I'm not ready for this. She nevertheless enjoyed the evening and the conversation, everyone good friends now, Russell and Connie clearly very attracted to one another, with Connie doing her best to make it a spontaneous double date and Cathy resisting at every turn.

At one point, clearly with togetherness in mind, Connie turned up the music and pulled Russell up to dance, insisting that Paul and Cathy join them. Paul read Cathy's mood correctly and begged off, to Cathy's relief. The moment passed, no one's feelings were hurt, and the impromptu dinner continued to sparkle.

Eventually the dishes were put away and the evening was ripe for the next step, which Cathy fervently hoped would involve the guys going off to a sports bar. It turned uncomfortable for her when Connie suggested they adjourn to a club, "to keep the party going."

This was more than Cathy was ready to handle. Before she could put an excuse into words, Paul read her reluctance and saved her again. "You guys go. I'm really behind on the books, anyway. Russell, I insist. Take off, and be sure to show Connie a good time."

Oh, thank you, thought Cathy. God, I hope Paul stays a gentleman. I don't want to hurt his feelings.

Connie somewhat surprisingly had no objections to taking Russell off by herself; she assumed that Cathy and Paul wanted to be alone. Mission accomplished, she thought, and she was off with Russell and a wave, Russell himself showing all the alert intensity of a fisherman delicately dropping his fly over a very large trout. He was not looking forward to dancing, but in the present circumstance would have followed Connie to a bridal shower, even a floral show.

Paul and Cathy sat silently for a long moment. "I'm sorry", he said. "I thought it might be uncomfortable for us. I hope you don't mind."

"No, no, no. Not at all." He understands. "Thank you, Paul."

"Actually, Connie saved me from a tough night. I thought I was going to have to take him out for a good drunk."

"I suppose that's what guys do when they get back from overseas."

"He has an excuse. Just between us, Russell is a hurting puppy. His wife left him on our second deployment and moved to Oregon with their son. She put his stuff in storage, no one paid the bill, and now everything he owns is in one duffel bag. He's really broken up about losing her, and his son."

"Oh, my God, that's terrible. The poor man." And I thought I had a tough divorce? "How could she do that to him while he was overseas fighting?"

"Who knows what goes on in someone else's relationship? I met her once or twice and she seemed OK. I can't find fault with either one of them. Separation is tough on families. Anyway, how about a cup of coffee before I hit the books?"

Coffee had become their entry to conversation, always interesting, always safe. Tonight, however, the student seemed interested in digging deeper than he had before. Can I ask a personal question? Your own divorce must have been traumatic; can you talk about it? He was not interested in hearing of infidelity or how she had been treated, brushed them aside with questions instead about how it had affected her. What sort of feelings did it generate?

She talked, hesitantly at first, about her anger and shame. He knew about anger, about shame; asked her if she had ever felt that kind of embarrassment before, and she found herself telling him about a teenage date gone sour, something she hadn't thought of in years. Were you ashamed of what he had done, Paul wanted to know, or feeling fuilty that you had let it happen, were somehow complicit?

This was a new level; her mind told her that she had done nothing wrong, but her heart kept telling her that if she had been a better wife perhaps she would still be married. Yes, she admitted, she felt a sense of guilt. The student drew her out still further, encouraged her to elaborate. He was relentless, looked deep into her eyes. A deep sense of guilt? Is it a really strong feeling? Yes, very strong, I still cry about it often. I failed at the job that mattered most.

Guilt if a two-edged weapon, he observed; it can keep us on the high road, steer us away from immorality and worse, but an awful thing when it attacks the undeserving. They talked about guilt, the nagging feelings she sometimes had about work undone at the hospital, his own about decisions taken that had resulted in violent death, and she sensed that there were ghosts in his past as well.

Still he was not finished, though the coffee had long gone cold and the candle guttered. Were these the only feeling generated by the breakup? Yes, perhaps there were others. What were they? She was not sure; knew, but did not want to go that far. Did she not feel lonely, abandoned? He was sure he would have. Yes, that, too, she admitted. And perhaps that was the most damaging, because it was with her every day, when she came home to an empty house, woke up in an empty bed. All the nagging uncertainties of maintaining a home, paying bills, taxes, insurance had been taken care of before. Now she was on her own; Trent did not want her any longer, was certainly doing fine while she had been cast off. She felt responsibility, and loneliness.

The student knew both, and talked about his own uncertainties, the loneliness of an officer who could not befriend the men he led; men, kids, some of them, who needed him to keep his distance, to always know what to do, who depended upon him always to make the correct call.

Now her tears came, and he held her hand. She used first her napkin, then his. And still he went on. Yes, of course it hurts; could not be otherwise. And did she not sometimes feel that she had been unworthy? Did she not ever feel small, of little value?

The floodgates opened, for was that which she had not wanted to acknowledge, even to herself; she judged it bordered on depression. Sometimes, she said, she felt she wanted to stay curled up in bed forever, wanted the world to forget her. She told him she felt shriveled, old before her time. Not always, of course, but often enough. And he understood, consoled; she could see it in his eyes. He did not say to her that she should not feel that way; assured her that feelings just happened, as they did for us all. The tears started again, running hot down her cheeks to fall in threes and fours on the glass tabletop. He fumbled for the napkin that was not there, rose to stand over her and dry her eyes with the tail of his shirt. With the tail of his shirt, and they both laughed, and it was time for a break.

Cathy felt drained; drained, and yet relieved and light-hearted. She had trusted the student with some of her most private thoughts, made herself vulnerable, and he had not rejected, scoffed or turned her away.

Instead he sent her inside with a hug, a brotherly hug that lasted for long moments and felt so healing. She had not known that sort of human contact for a long time. Later, she would recall the feel of his arms and shoulders and the memory would inspire a different feeling entirely, but for tonight she felt only a deep sense of communion in a very improbable setting. The student, too, would recall the smell of her hair and her slender waist and arouse a feeling that went far beyond healing, a feeling that he pushed aside as unworthy.

Inside, Cathy tried to read, but could not concentrate. The TV had nothing that held her interest. Connie, she knew, she could not call, so she called her mother instead for an interminable conversation that seemed pointless, inane, though her mother was delighted to her from her and had loads of family news. Finally, she went to bed, and in the dark and quiet, not yet able to sleep, she marveled that she could have experienced such – she had to admit it – emotional intimacy with Paul who, she realized, had made for himself a significant place in her life. She had had a husband, she had family and friends of long standing, yet with none of them could she recall speaking so intimately as with this student, whom she had known for only a few weeks. Yes, she had strong feelings for him, she told herself, but not that kind. Please, not that kind.

******

Connie and Russell, at the same moment, were locked in their second, far less Platonic, encounter of the night. She had unintentionally but flirtatiously teased him almost beyond his endurance, taking him to a dance club (for she loved to dance, danced extremely well) where he doggedly kept pace, enjoying only the sight of her lovely swaying body. Russell was no dancer, and knew it. His best efforts were spasmodic, almost comical, except that people, and most especially other men, instinctively sensed that it would not be at all prudent to laugh at the sergeant. He would have liked to have sat and talked to her, not having spoken with a woman in a year except for several very emotional calls to his wife that he would rather forget, but the music prevented any serious conversation. Finally he asked, "Can we go" with puppy eyes that caused her to relent.

To reward him for dancing, and as a hint of things to come, Connie kissed him passionately in the parking lot. Leaning back against the car, she could feel his instant, raging erection and rolled her hips against it. When they broke their embrace, both breathing noticeably faster, she announced they were going home, please. Quickly.

And quickly it turned out to be; they left a trail of clothing into the bedroom, bumping several times into walls and doorjambs, for two are not necessarily better than one when it comes to walking while simultaneously fondling and disrobing. Finally in bed, Russell was so delighted with his good fortune (he had never had a woman so beautiful and sexy) that he enjoyed it at once. Too late, he realized that he had failed to see to their mutual satisfaction, was ashamed of himself, and said so.

Connie was nothing if not understanding. She rolled him on his back, put a leg over him, reminded him that they had all night, and made bed talk. The pillow talk turned to conversation, but since Russell had little with which to make conversation beyond the army and the Atlanta Braves, Connie (sworn to secrecy) learned a good deal more than she wanted to know about his, and Paul's, experiences in Iraq. She was impressed by his devotion and loyalty to Paul; she valued those qualities as much as the next woman; but she was bored with the details and let her hand trail down over his chest, stomach and beyond, to test the waters, in a manner of speaking.

The water was instantly ready, and Connie asked if this was what was meant by the term "standing at attention?" It was, and Russell was determined to show her that he could give as well as he received, and had started to do so when Connie, not yet ready for him, lay full length upon him, pinning him down, and smothered him with kisses. Russell could only stroke her back and her lovely bottom while she darted her tongue around his lips, found and sucked his tongue, wriggled against him, ran a foot up the side of his leg.

At last she sat up, straddling him. She took his hands in hers, placed them on her thighs, and slowly drew them up over her hips and cupped them on her breasts. "Do you like me?" she whispered.

"You're the most beautiful woman I ever knew."

Trite, she thought, but he sounded honest. She traced her fingers on his forearms. "Your hands feel wonderful."

Her breasts and nipples were hard now, and Russell began to feel better about his efforts. In the reflected glow of the amber light in her clock radio Connie's skin looked almost Polynesian. He ran his hands down to her abdomen, her thighs, back up the inside of her thighs.

Connie sighed, writhed, put her hands behind her head, arched her back to push her breasts forward in invitation. Russell trailed his fingers through her smooth armpits, up and down the underside of her arms, before accepting the invitation and rolling her nipples with his palms. Then she slowly reached behind her, gently let her fingers run lightly over his balls and up his shaft, tracing its length. When she gripped it she looked full in his eyes, smiled and silently mouthed "Wow!"

He pulled her down to him, he thought for another kiss, but she leaned forward so that one beautiful nipple hung above his lips. Russell responded instantly, trying to be gentle. "It feels so good when you do that, baby." And later, "The other one, please." And later still, "I can't wait any longer. I want you inside me." She slid back, hands on his chest, guided herself expertly onto him and sank slowly down with a long sigh.

As she rocked her hips and began her rhythm, her rhythm, not his, bracing herself with one hand on the bed beside him, she almost idly used her other to trace his torso, the huge pectoral and lateral muscles, his neck, his face, as if she were a blind person seeing him with her touch for the first time. Russell was not used to being taken so aggressively; his wife had been enthusiastic but passive; this was a new experience. He lightly returned her touch, to her thighs, her waist, her back, her arms. He could feel her rhythm increasing and her breathing become more pronounced. Connie put both hands on his shoulders, looked back and down to where they were joined, and they both watched her grind her hips into him, faster still, until she held her breath, jerked hard against him three, four, five times in violent release.

Spent, she lay forward on him, face against his neck. "That was so nice."

"You're amazing."

"You didn't finish."

"I will. Unless you want me to wait."

"No. I want you to do me."

Russell rolled her over, liked to be on top. As she stretched her arms up over her head, he slid his forearms under her knees, lifting and spreading her, and entered her slowly and fully.

"God, you're so big. I love it."

Music to macho ears, he thought, as he began to slowly drive into her. He looked down at those lovely large boobs, gently swaying in time to his thrusts, down further and he could see his cock sliding in and out. The sight was so erotic that he began to lose control, started to drive into her harder and faster than he had intended.

Connie sensed his reluctance. "Mmmm, yes, yeah, as hard as you want." It put him over the edge, started his orgasm, and in a few more seconds he was gasping, rigid, then completely limp on top of her. Connie stroked his back, telling him how good he had been, thinking to herself that she had really caught a stallion here, and above all wishing, really wishing, that it had been as good for Cathy.

******

And in the garage apartment the student slept, able through long practice to drop off instantly for 20 minutes, an hour, or six. As he slept they came for him again, as they did nearly every night.

The soldier saw himself standing in a dusty compound surrounded by a bulldozed berm of desert sand, the sun shining with excruciating brilliance from a clear sky. A helicopter battered close overhead in an ungainly, nose-down attitude, but strangely made no sound. His men milled languidly around him, smiling, without helmets or weapons. Here was Murdoch, his gunner; there was Berecek, who carried the SAW for second squad; and Forepaugh, the likable kid from the impossibly-named hamlet of Flat Gap, Kentucky, who could thunk a 40mm grenade through a window from 100 meters (Which window, sir? Left? Right?), first shot, every time.

The soldier moved among them with a cheap, lined notebook. "Give me your addresses. You have to get your names in the book. Everybody has to be in the book. So we can get together." They smiled at him, bemused, not understanding, as he wrote.

Flash. Now the soldier was climbing the porch of a shabby wooden house in some dismal mill town. Youngstown? Gary? He knocked at the door and a middle-aged, work-worn woman in cheap print dress answered, her arms folded over her chest, only dimly visible behind the dusty screen.

"Hello, I'm Lieutenant Hegarty. His platoon leader. From over there. Is he here?" And in a tone reserved for telemarketers or trashy ex-girl friends she replied, "No. He's not. He's not here." The soldier offered her a piece of paper from the notebook; she accepted it silently, uncomprehending. "Tell him to come. He has to be there. We're all going to be there."

Flash again, and now the soldier, wearing suit and tie, was entering the brightly-lit lobby of a luxury hotel under a crystal chandelier while well-dressed men and women walked purposefully about, nodding to one another. He saw an activities board, and on it the entry "B/1/504", an arcane inscription decipherable only by those who could understand: his people.

The soldier followed a darker, thickly carpeted hallway, heavy with wainscoting and muted pictures in ornate frames to the meeting room and entered. He saw a buffet, a beverage table, chairs and tables all set. But no one was there, not a single, solitary soul. Only himself.

The student awoke, anxiety thick in his chest. Memories started to crowd in, but he pushed them back, cursed silently and heaved himself out of bed. Walking to the bathroom for water, he looked into the mirror and saw pain. Back to bed, and he clenched his jaws, refused to think or remember and willed himself back to sleep.

But they were not done with him yet, not by half, and in an hour or two his defenses relaxed and they came for him again.

This time the soldier was standing in the featureless desert, again surrounded by soldiers. The light was very poor; morning or evening nautical twilight. The unit was preparing for a mission, loading magazines and assault packs, slowly and deliberately shrugging on armored vests and utility harnesses, readying weapons; all the familiar activity. The men were helmeted and, oddly, wore sand goggles. They kept their faces averted from him, yet there was a strangeness about them that told the soldier these were not his men, not his unit.

He went from one man to another, anxious, trying to get their attention. "This isn't my unit", he tried to tell them. "I'm not supposed to be here. I don't belong here any longer. I can't go with you." No one acknowledged him; it was as if he did not exist for them. Slowly, silently, they began to form up and move off in the loose, shambling, open column of veteran infantry and he realized that he would have to go as well, would have to go on the mission. The soldier bent to pick up his pack and rifle and turned to follow.

But the unit had vanished, and he was alone in the desert.

The student woke again, feeling lonely and abandoned beyond measure. And now the images flooded in, could not be held back; real memories this time, a jumbled collage of unconnected events that had played and replayed in his mind for months. He saw again the huge brown, expanding blossoms of smoke and dirt, heard the whump of explosions, felt the concussion that bounced his prone body almost free of the ground. The soldier saw bodies, and parts of bodies, in blackening stains; saw the angry faces of men and women shouted in a language none of them could understand. He saw his men running, stooped, shouting over a continuous crackle of gunfire; remembered the hot shell casings tinkling on the ground beside him; heard the radio hissing calm, truncated phrases amid the chaos. He saw again the wide-eyed, panicked face, ridiculously small under its helmet, looking up at him and pleading, "What are we going to do now, lieutenant?"

The soldier felt again the stark terror that day the fighter had released its 500-pound load and the bomb wavered, straightened and began an arc he was certain would end on his own helmet. Unable to take his eyes from it, he shouted curses at the pilot even after the bomb landed on the correct building after all, obliterating it and God knows how many bad guys with whom he strangely felt more kinship than he now felt for the visored, impersonal pilot.