Cor ad Cor Loquitur
by Jean Helms

~~~~~



The bottled water has been drunk and all the bottles put away.

The admiral has gone home to his empty house.

Bud and Harriet have gone home to hold their only living child and
remember the daughter they lost.

Gunny has gone, Tiner has gone.

Even Renee and Mic have gone, both trailing behind a stage-whispered
"see you later" that was meant for other ears. Just a trace of a hint
of a smile over a shoulder was enough to give it away. 

We'll be doing it tonight, you know, the whispers had said. Oh, yes,
we will.

And you will do it, too, and everyone already knows it so it shouldn't
matter what the whispers and sly looks mean. You'll go home and hang
up your uniform, she'll go home and hang up hers. You'll both put on
that old cliche'd "something more comfortable" and then get in the car
or wait by the door, and there'll be a knock on a door and a kiss and
a short conversation and then off to bed and the deed will be done.

You'll go home then or you won't, then it's back to work the next
morning to face each other with no questions asked because neither of
you has any heart's blood left to spare.

It shouldn't matter, but it does.

Maybe if you'd walked Kate to her car the way any normally courteous
man would instead of giving her that awkward, ungainly goodbye at the
door in full view of Renee and everyone else, maybe then it wouldn't
have mattered. It wouldn't have mattered because you could have shown
Renee and Kate ... you could have shown her ... that a kiss is just a
kiss and a touch is just a touch and that old friends can kiss and
touch and what passes in the flesh doesn't mean a thing because it's
heart that speaks to heart.

In the end, it matters a lot, though, and you know it, and Kate Pike's
only kiss from you is a long-ago memory. She deserved more from you.


So many women could say that, couldn't they? They could; but they
don't know why.

They think you took from them a few minutes of fun and a handy place
to do a quick testosterone dump-off when all along it was their soft
arms and soft bodies and soft voices you needed because they're the
only defense you have against the empty places in your soul.

Those places need to stay empty because they are always too easy to
fill ... with thoughts of a man gone old and gray in captivity while
you cried alone and your mother cried in another room, of thoughts of
a tossing deck you couldn't see, of an impact so hard you still feel
it, of flames straight out of hell and screams of a man dying in the
flames, dying because of you, dying ...

They don't know, because you gave them pleasure, you gave them fun,
but you never gave your heart away until now.

And now those comfortable clothes are nagging in the back of your
mind, those worn jeans that Renee likes to see you in, that shirt that
she says matches your eyes. It's easier to go back to the desk for one
last look at a file or a law book or a telephone number than to go
home to hang up the uniform. 

Because if you've been using her, she's using you right back. The
entire staff gets to hear her issue her commands, and that's what they
are, commands, no matter how they're phrased, and even the enlisted
people hear her order you to perform for her.

He may be a senior officer with gold braid on his cover, with a law
degree on his wall and a pair of gold wings on his chest, she says,
with a toss of her hair, but he'll come to my bed if I say he will
because he's my boy toy and don't you forget it.

Don't you forget it either, boy.

She's lots of fun. Really.

And she finds wielding this kind of power to be a lot of fun.

And you had it coming and it hurts and shames you anyway. Who, after
all, wants to be a trophy hanging on someone's wall even if that
someone is a lot of fun? 

Better to be here, where the uniform means something, where the wings
mean something, where the courtroom skills and the legal research
skills mean something, where honor and loyalty and patriotism mean
something and people don't automatically sneer if you're not cynical
about your country. 

Here, people think of you as a man with the stuff it takes to put your
life on the line, to land on a carrier in the dark when you can't see
because there's no other choice, to fire that missile and kill those
people because not to fire will kill even more people in the end, to
be a man with the stuff to do that and still get up in the morning and
not just a boy toy with the stuff it takes to have a fun time in bed.

Yeah. It's better to be here.

The outer offices and hallways are dark, and only a little light
shines from the smaller offices on the perimeter. One of them is your
office. That's your area; while you're in there, the dark wool jacket
can come off and hang by the door, you can loosen your tie and the top
button on your shirt and for a minute, you can be as comfortable as
any man working late in any law office. 

You can't forget who you are; you can never forget that, but for a
moment, it doesn't have to chafe quite as much.

There's light coming from her office, too.

Has she shed the Marine green jacket? Is she working in the next
office wearing a fitted khaki blouse that fits her better than any
uniform ever ought to be allowed to fit any woman? The colors and the
fabrics don't flatter her looks but she doesn't care. That's not why
she wears it.

She never thinks of you as a trophy. She knows the measure of a man
doesn't lie between his legs or in the symmetry of his face but in the
courage he brings to bear when the job has to be done. 

She knows that because she's been there. She's put her own life on the
line, she's sweated and hurt, she's braved the cold and the heat, the
air and the sea, she's faced the gun and she's taken a life, she's
taken all the earth and the enemy can dish out and she's come through
it alive with the quiet grace of a brave woman and a United States
Marine.

You know you love her, love the joy she finds in life and has come so
close to losing, love the beauty of her face and form, love the quick
incisiveness of her mind, but most of all you love her because heart
speaks to heart, because you don't have to tell her why you'd let an
enemy plane blow you out of the sky if it meant one more battle won
for freedom. You don't have to tell her why you'd don a parachute and
jump behind the lines to bring back a fellow aviator, because you know
she'd never leave another Marine behind if she had to lay down her own
life to bring him back. Heart speaks to heart.

You don't have to tell her, just as you don't have to tell her you
love her. She knows.

She still wants to hear it. She's going to marry Mic Brumby, and she
still wants to hear it. It's asking too goddamn much, but still, she's
asking.

Not aloud; never aloud. You turned away from Kate, and you looked at
her, talking to Renee and Mic, and you read the question in her eyes,
the same question she asked on a ferry boat in Australia: Are we going
to wait for eternity?

You still don't have an answer for her.

So you sit here, and you turn pages, and you try to follow the
justices' reasoning in a contempt of court ruling, and you wonder if
an answer will ever come, because to you, your own heart is silent.

~~~~~

He's next door. 

He's sitting in his office, tie loosened, jacket off, but that's all.
No rolled-up sleeves, no kicked-off shoes; he's still within
regulation, and if he should step across the hall for coffee, he'll
put the jacket back on and tighten the knot on his tie.

He does things as he's supposed to do them for as long as he can; when
he breaks the rules, it's for a reason.

He apparently sees no reason to break any rules now.

You can almost feel the heat of his body radiating through the wall
that separates your office from his. You know what his body feels like
through his clothing. You know the hard, lean planes of muscle on his
chest and back, the strong, corded muscles of his arms; you know the
way he looks when he's working out, when those arms bend and flex and
lift, when the veins stand out and the sweat pours down, when his body
lifts and rises as he does one push-up, two, three, four ... and
that's all you know, because to see him move that way always takes
your mind to places it should never be.

The heat of the man ... the hard, long heat of his body that you know,
the hard, long heat of that part of him you can only imagine... but
Jordan said ... oh, what Jordan said ... she giggled after she said
it, a giggle like a punctuation mark, and that silly giggle was like a
sudden lick of flame shooting from the ground through your heels all
the way to the top of your head.

You wouldn't have asked what he was like. You left that to someone
else, because knowing that makes it so much worse. You didn't want to
know, so you didn't ask.

That didn't save you from knowing.

"He's big," Jordan said, blushing and giggling again. "Really big."

She said more, but you didn't hear it. You didn't need to. The rest,
you could figure out yourself. 

He can be selfish and arrogant -- what pilot isn't? -- but you know
the softness of his voice and his touch too well not to know how he
would use them them in bed. You know the agile athleticism with which
he moves far too well not to translate it into the easy movement of
lovers together giving and taking pleasure. The only thing missing
from your fantasy was the knowledge of how he was built in that one
area.

And now you have it and you can never again pretend that you don't.
You can never again glance at him and pretend it's just the way his
uniform fits.

What would it be like to be him, to have all the credentials for
admission into the old boys' club, never to have to fight for
recognition and acceptance? To be male and tall, to have combat
experience, to fly off carriers, son and grandson of war heroes? Is it
as easy as it seems, is he so complete in himself? Is that why it's so
easy for him to live without you?

Is it easy? It didn't seem so once, one night on a ferry in Australia.

You can almost believe now that you imagined the trembling in his
voice as he sidestepped the heavy emotions you were bringing him near.
His eyes were wide, so wide, and you had him backed up against the
railing; he looked as though at any moment he might raise his hands
over his head and begin reciting name, rank, serial number and date of
birth.

Captured, with no hope of escape.

And he was, oh, he was hoping for escape, hoping you would stop, would
let this go and let it be nothing more than any of a hundred other
meals you'd shared together, no more special than a sandwich outside
the JAG HQ building, no more meaningful than a cup of coffee during
staff meeting.

He wanted you, even if he wouldn't admit it. He said you should be
flattered. He called you by name, and your name slid soft as a sigh
from his lips, so softly that you knew he'd said it to himself before,
in the dark, maybe, his hand wrapped around himself, but that's no
good to you now. 

A memory, a fantasy, an exception to all the rules, that's what you
were, what you would have become, when all you wanted was to be a
flesh and blood woman in his arms. It wasn't so much, no more than
he'd given to other women, and yet it was more, much more, so much
more that he let you go to Mic.

And you went, and a hundred thousand lights that spelled eternity
flickered and died soundlessly on a moonlit night that would never
come again.

You glance at the clock, and your heart sinks. It's almost time to go.
Realizing how reluctant that makes you feel makes you unhappier than
ever.

But Mic will be waiting, and Mic loves you, even if he does have an
infuriating tendency to want the whole world to know that he has
access to your body, to "the whole package." He has a great deal to
learn about women in general and women Marines, this Marine, in
particular, even if he does have a persistent, wickedly charming way
with women and dazzling taste in diamonds.

But Harm knows. Harm's seen the look in your eyes and the blood on
your hands. He's seen you lose control altogether, he's taken your
blame and your insults, your anger, your betrayal of his friendship
and you've never lost his respect. The empty place inside him draws
him away from you, draws him from a warm bed and a willing body to the
snowbound wilderness of his own soul, but he's never said, he's never
thought, that you were unfit to be his friend or his comrade in arms.

You're a Marine to him, and a colleague, not a package.

Maybe if you were a bit more of a package, you'd be going to his bed
tonight instead of Mic's. You'll never know.

You've never been willing to pay that price.

The clock is still ticking.

It's time for you to go.


~~~~~

Your desk lamp is hot as you reach for the chain to click it off, and
you stand there in the dark, your fingertips resting on the glass
shade, trying to let its heat dispel some of the cold you feel inside.

The light from his office is still shining between the blinds on your
office windows, and this room where you spend so much of your life
feels suddenly unfamiliar in the hard-edged shadows. You need to
leave, but you want to stay, to make it feel right again in these
sharp slants of light.

The cold has made the ring on your hand too loose and the fingers have
gone pale, but the diamond glints at you from the proper finger now,
there's no denying that, you can look at it and see that it's where
it's supposed to be.

At least you put a stop to that particular brand of cowardice. Things
are in their places. 

It still feels wrong; wrong to wear this ring, wrong to stand here in
the near dark, wrong to feel lost and silent in your own office.

There might be a way to make it all right again, if you could find
it... if you would risk it.

You twirl the ring around nervously, twist it around again and again
and it begins to irritate the hell out of you, the way the band rubs
against your skin, the way the twisting makes your finger feel strange
and sore ...

You could go to him. There's light in there, soft light, not this
sharp light cast at crazy angles, and there's warmth that won't fade
away with the ticking of cooling brass. 

Or you could put on your coat and go to the arms that belong to you,
the arms you belong to. 

Mic's arms aren't cold ... they're not. They're warm and strong,
sometimes too strong, but although he boasts and brags with them,
although he drapes them around you a little too publicly, a little too
possessively, he doesn't hurt you with them. 

You could walk out of here right now, walk to your car, drive to Mic's
place and walk right into his arms and Mic would hold you, all night
if you wanted, and you wouldn't be cold there ... not cold the way you
are here, now.

Or you could stand here in the dark ... 

There are so many pitfalls, choices lying behind and ahead, choices
that lead back to this city where it always seems to rain now and
leaves you so cold and so alone ... 

Twist. Twist. Twist.

Hold it up to the light. It still sparkles. It still hurts.

Would he take it off if you asked him? Would he hold your hand until
it felt warm again? 

It frightens you to think this way, because it was supposed to be
settled now, everything settled and secure and certain, with nothing
left to decide but what china pattern and which invitation and when
and where the ceremony.

But that light is still slanting through your windows. He's had time
tonight to leave, to get out of here before you do and he has not
gone, he is still here, and those angled beams of light are telling
you that you haven't decided a damn thing yet.

You pick up your coat but you drape it over your arm instead of
putting it on. When you step out that door you'll be out of uniform,
all the pieces will be there but in the wrong places ... 

You open your door and it closes behind you with a sound like a last
warning, but you move on, you walk to the room where the light is soft
and warm, where the only thing strange is how long you've stayed away.

You tap on his open door and when he looks up the light shines soft in
his eyes.

"Why are you still here?" he says. "I thought you had a date tonight."
The challenge is a mild one, even a friendly one, but it's a challenge
nonetheless.

"I thought you did, too," you say, smiling in spite of yourself when
you see how tired he is, because you know that he can hide it, that he
can steel himself to keep going, yet he is letting you, only you, see
how very much he wants to lay his head down and rest.

He is tired, more tired than you can remember having seen him lately.
Of course he is; he lost a friend tonight, lost her forever for all he
knows, because she trusted him, because he would not break the rule
and close the door and keep out the listening ear that betrayed them
both.

What really happened between him and Kate, you wonder ... was it
really only once, only a weekend, was it really he who couldn't handle
what they became?

You wonder, but you don't ask, because although he's tired, he smiles
back and it's your smile, the one he gives only to you, the one that
lifts every line in his tired eyes, that puts your feet firmly on the
earth and lets you belong where you are.

"I had a couple of things to do first," he says, but he closes the
book he's reading -- without, you notice, marking the page.

"You should go home," you say. "You look beat."

He shrugs, but the smile doesn't disappear; not entirely, anyway.
"It's been a long week," he says. 

A good answer, and a prudent one, as usual. He's too good a tactician
to commit to a position until he knows where you're headed; they
taught him well at Pensacola and Miramar. Still, it hurts that he's so
wary, even with you.

"I guess it has," you say. "It was a tough case. I'm sorry it didn't
go better."

Another shrug. "There's no winning that kind of case, Mac," he says,
and for the first time, you think you see the barrier coming down.
"However it came out, someone's career was going down in flames."

"How come it's never yours?" you say without thinking, and then you
look up at him, horrified, realizing what you've said, but somehow
it's all right; the smile is gone, but the light in his eyes is even
softer.

"I don't know, Mac," he says, and his voice is like a night wind over
the desert, soft, soothing, quiet ... you wait for days sometimes to
hear that voice, because he doesn't use it often. "Maybe because you
were there to protect me again."

"I had nothing to do with that," you say, shaking your head and
wishing you'd kept your mouth shut. This is dangerous territory, and
you both know it.

"You did, and I never thanked you for it," he says, and his voice is
holding you transfixed, so still you can hear your own heart beating.
"You're a good friend."

"You don't have to thank me for anything," you say, hoping your own
voice is steady. "You and I have both had relationships we'd just as
soon not hear broadcast from the witness stand."

"I know," he says. "But thank you anyway." 

"Well," you say, and then you smile. "It was kind of entertaining,
watching you squirm in front of the admiral."

"Yeah, and you were loving every minute of it," he says, rising, and
now he's smiling, too, but it's not your smile now -- it's the killer
smile, the gold-wings-and-white-uniform smile, and it may not be yours
but it still works on you, just like it works on every other
heterosexual woman on earth who isn't comatose. "Don't try to tell me
you weren't."

"Just trying to make sure you'd learned your lesson, flyboy," you say,
and you turn to walk away. Better to leave now, while the defenses are
intact and you're both smiling. It'll keep you together on the drive
to Mic's place.

You turn, but you turn too slowly, just slowly enough to notice that
he's standing still ... very still ... and like Lot's wife, you create
your own doom ... you turn, and you look back.

And you see the truth in his eyes: they're unclouded, unhidden, the
color of a clear tropical sea ... the aviator's smile is gone and
there's nothing there but honest emotion ... the way he is, sometimes,
but really, only with you.

"I learned my lesson, Mac," he says, and now his voice is as gentle as
a caress. "I learned it a long time ago."

He is, and you cannot doubt it, telling you the truth.

And there is nothing for you to do but to nod, and drop your gaze to
the floor, because to look at him one moment longer will cost you
every shred of dignity you have left.

You shouldn't have come here. 

He clears his throat and turns away from you, just a little. "If
you'll wait a minute, I'll walk you to your car," he says, stepping
around the desk as he reaches for the button on his collar.

You nod, because you want that, but you're not ready to leave; not
yet. You step closer to him, and he stops where he is. He's so close
you can feel his breath on your skin.

"I'm sorry," you say, and that's all. You can't say the rest, so you
just lay your hand lightly on his left shoulder, just the tip of one
finger brushing over the soft shoulderboard, barely touching the gold
braid that says you shouldn't be sorry when the cosmos punishes a man
who did what he knew was wrong. 

"Sorry for what, Mac?" he says, and you think he'll move away, but he
doesn't. For a moment, you think maybe he's comfortable with this
touch, too, and with you, for the first time in so long you can barely
remember, and you don't move, afraid you'll break the spell.

"That things went so badly for you and Kate," you say, and your hand
feels good to you there, the crisp white fabric feels good to you and
the heat of his body beneath it ... 

Things have been going badly between the two of you lately, too, the
old, familiar rhythms of friendship knocked off balance, the deeper
feelings that warmed and sustained you for so long now fading away
like a dream in the night ... you've both become so afraid of each
other, but you can't be afraid of him this way, of the hand with no
ring on it touching the sign of the rank he's worked so hard to earn
and because you know him and what he went through to earn it, this
touch is like a marriage ... every day of his life from plebe summer
until this moment you know him and your hand is comfortable there.

You wait, and in a moment, he sighs and shakes his head.

"You can't turn back the clock, Mac," he says, and his voice is soft.
"Whatever Kate and I had was over a long time ago. Her staying here
wouldn't have changed that."

"I know," you say, but you don't know it. It's just that for now, you
can let his certainty be enough for you both, if he will just stand
here one minute longer while your hand rises and falls and warms to
his heartbeat and his breathing.

Let it be enough, you plead with yourself, let it be enough, but the
unfastened button at his collar defeats you; your eyes close and you
lay your head on his shoulder and rest your face against the pulse
beating so strongly at the base of his throat, against the warm skin
that covers it, against the flesh and bone that make him what he is. 

For a moment he goes still, and you try to prepare yourself: gentle
hands on your arms will move you away, a gentle voice will tell you
that it's time to go home, and you'll have your answer, but you don't
move yet because hope dies so hard.

And then his hands move, and one of them is in your hair, stroking
softly, and the other is on your back, holding you carefully with the
sure touch of a man who knows how to touch a woman, how to touch you,
how to make his touch tell you what he cannot trust his voice to say,
and his lips are warm and soft on your forehead.

And you do have your answer, but it's only half the answer you wanted;
still, you could stay like this forever, you could, but the time is
over too quickly. He puts his hands on your arms and puts you away
from him; compassionately, yes, but firmly, and very definitely, just
as you knew he would. 

"Come on, Mac," he says, and his voice is firm, too. "We can't leave
here like this. You're out of uniform, and so am I."

You nod, because you know you have already bent the rules too far. You
both respect your uniform too much to wear it piecemeal in public, no
matter how badly you need each other's warmth.

But it stings, too, because you need just one more moment to be close
to him, and it nettles you that he can turn away from you so easily.

"Is it always that simple for you, Harm?" you ask, stepping back from
him as you slip your coat over your shoulders, but you don't button
it; not yet.

"Is what that simple?" he asks, looking puzzled, but he's on alert,
you can see that, all right; he knows that tone of your voice.

"To let me go," you say, and you feel suddenly reckless, as though
you'd tossed back a shotglass of throat-burning whiskey; you remember
that feeling, hard as you try to forget it. "To let me go, knowing
where I'm going and what I'm going to do when I get there."

He flinches at that; not much, but enough, enough to give you the
answer whether he tells the truth or he doesn't. "It's none of my
business," he says, and you decide to give him points for that.
Technically, it's true. 

"Maybe it isn't," you say, turning your back on him. "But there was a
time when I thought it mattered to you."

"Mac, don't do this," he says, but there's no warning in his voice,
only a plea. "Don't say anything else, because we'll both be sorry
later if you do."

"That's always going to be your answer, isn't it?" you say, bitterly.
"Let's just don't talk about it, and then it won't exist, or it'll go
away. That's what we did in Australia, and that's why when I leave
here, I'll be going to another man's bed."

"Mac, for God's sake, stop," he says, his voice barely more than a
whisper. 

You'd love to grant that request, but it's gotten beyond you; whether
it's him alone or all the things Kate has forced you to think about or
your own doubts about Mic or the wearying strain of all of them
together, you couldn't say. 

All you know is that tonight, you've lost the fight; you're going to
say these things and there's only one way out of this mess, straight
ahead, do or die and you are hurting him, oh, God, you are hurting him
but he's hurting you, too ... he's hurting you so much ...

"I wanted to be with you that night," you say, and you can hear how
badly your voice is shaking but you can't stop it. "I spent hours
shopping, picking out just the right thing to wear, hours getting
ready, because I thought it was finally the right time and that we
could be together. And then you didn't want me ..."

"I never said I didn't want you ..." he begins, but you can't go
through that again, you just can't, and your dignity suddenly doesn't
seem such a huge price to pay.

"Don't, please, don't," you say, and all at once the tears are coming,
hot and humiliating, your hands are covering your face and you no
longer have a choice of what you'll say or won't say. "Don't turn me
away again, Harm, don't send me back to Mic again, please don't," and
you're sobbing now, the words are pouring out and nothing is going to
stop them, nothing, because this is what happens when heart speaks to
heart. 

You don't know how it happened or how you lost control so completely,
you only know that you're in his arms again, you're crying and that
he's holding you again but so much closer this time, so much ... 

You lift your eyes to his, you try to apologize but his mouth comes
down on yours and he's kissing you -- you, not some dream of a lost
love, but you -- and his kiss is as warm and strong and all-consuming
as you always knew it would be, turning your bones to liquid and your
body to flame ... 

Your arms link around his neck because you have to hold him closer,
because you cannot hold yourself up, because you're melting into him
so fast that only years of intense discipline are keeping you from
pulling him down to the floor with you right now ...

But the discipline so thoroughly instilled does not soon go away; you
both know who and what you are, and where. Too soon, almost as soon as
it begins, it's over ... your body slides down against his as he
slowly loosens his hold on you but you feel him, hot, hard, wanting
you, you see the look in his eyes, and you know he has never looked at
Renee or Jordan or Kate in quite this way ...

And yet he is letting you go, and you look again, and you know why.
You've seen the same look in your own mirror too many times. Everyone
he's ever loved, everyone you've ever loved, has left you, been taken
away or abandoned you.

Loving each other is just too great a risk.

And because he's holding you so close, with such love, you know that
in this one moment, if never again in your life, you can let go of
that fear and let your heart speak to his openly, honestly, without
pretense.

"I know what you're afraid of," you whisper, and you touch his face
gently, wanting so badly for him to see the truth in your eyes as
clearly as you see it in his. 

"Mac," he says, but your fingers on his lips stop him.

"I know we can't undo everything that's happened to us," you say.
"Only children think that love can make everything all right."

You think he'll flinch at the word, but he doesn't ... he smiles
instead, and it's almost worse than if he'd turned away from you,
because it's your smile again, the one he saves just for you. 

"And we're not children, are we?" he says, softly, wiping a tear from
your cheek with his thumb.

"No," you say, still holding him, trying so hard to memorize
everything about this moment before it goes away forever. "We're not
children."

But we are children, both of us, you think ... we're still the lost,
abandoned children we were so many years ago, still unable to trust
the world, still unable to believe that love can come to stay.

Things could have been different, perhaps .. if he hadn't become
obsessed with filling the empty place in his mother's life only to
find that she didn't need him to fill it, that she could put the past
behind her, fall in love again and remarry ... if you hadn't tried to
use alcohol and foolish love affairs to fill that place that nothing
could ever fill, if you'd been able to forgive your mother and your
father for not being perfect ...

He's not perfect, either. He's the bravest man you know or ever hope
to know, but sometimes, he fails, he falls short. He has put his life
on the line more times than you can count but still, there are some
risks he won't take.

And one of those risks is the risk of loving you and losing you; that,
he is certain he could not survive. 

You'll forgive him, though; even for that, because you love him. 

But you can't say it, because to say it would only unleash another
flood of tears. You lay your head on his shoulder again, and again, he
holds you with a tenderness no other man has ever shown you nor, you
are sure, ever will.

"We need to go, Sarah," he says, but he's stroking your hair as he
says it. "There are people waiting for us."

"I know," you whisper, but you don't let go of him. "Mic was expecting
me 27 minutes ago."

"Renee's expecting me, too," he says, and you close your eyes against
the finality you hear in his voice and the image his words create in
your mind. 

Maybe it's the pain that makes you reckless, or gives you courage...
later, when you think about it, you won't be sure which it was. For
now, you don't give yourself time to think.

"Harm," you say, in a whisper so soft he has to bend his head lower to
hear you, "I don't want you to worry about coming to work on Monday. I
promise you, I'll do whatever it takes to make things go right, as
though this had never happened."

He doesn't answer, but you can feel the uneasy nod of his head;
thoughts of Monday are unsettling enough, but he knows something else
is coming. He knows you so well.

"But before we walk out of here and try to pretend this never
happened, I need one thing from you," you say, trying to sound calm,
but your heart is pounding. What you're about to ask him is over the
line, far over the line, and you know it; it's just that you think
you'll die if you don't ask.

"What?" he says, and that tugs at your heart, too, his asking you
straight out, without searching for a safer position from which he can
retreat. He won't deny you this; he may hesitate, he may even panic,
but he won't say no.

You look up at him, into his eyes, and you kiss him gently once more,
and that hurts, too, knowing there will never be another time in your
life when you will be able to touch him so freely. 

"Touch me," you whisper, and you lay your hand on his face. "Touch me
the way you would if you were my lover."

For just a moment he does hesitate, but it's not uncertainty that
keeps him still; he wants to do this, he most definitely does, but you
can almost see the thoughts racing through his mind, of Monday morning
and a hundred Mondays to come, of Mic and Renee and how far this can
go before it becomes betrayal, of how far he can go before stopping
ceases to be an option, of whether he'll hurt you more by saying yes
or by saying no.

He hesitates, but the moment passes and his courage takes over again.
Whatever the consequences are, he'll deal with them; he's not going to
hurt you again, not tonight. You know that as surely as if he'd said
it aloud.

His kiss is gentle at first, little more than soft nuzzling, as if you
were trying out the feel of each other's mouths, but there are people
waiting for you and you can't go slowly; you open your mouth beneath
his and his tongue slides warmly against yours as he pulls you closer.

A sound comes from your throat, half pleasure, half sorrow, a moan
that turns into a cry as his other hand covers your breast, his palm
pressing into the soft weight, his fingers curling gently around the
curve of your flesh, his thumb brushing over your nipple just so, just
as if he'd touched you there a hundred times before and had learned
long ago how you wanted to be touched, and if you were on fire for him
before, now you are in nuclear meltdown. 

Thoughts of lying naked with him in bed, touching each other, driving
each other to ecstasy, are pounding through your brain and for a
moment you almost forget what you promised him, but you cannot forget
for long. With a wrenching pain you pull your mouth from his and you
feel his hands drop to your waist as he rests his forehead against
yours. 

There is no sound in the building except your breathing and his, and
you want to say something but there really is nothing to say, nothing
at all ... you've said it all already.

You kiss him again, twice, and then you turn as fast as you can, you
walk as fast as you can, faster, faster, listening to the click of
your heels on the floor, running down the stairs so you won't have to
stop at the elevator, straight out of the building to your car, your
breathing tight and shallow, and not until you're at a traffic light
half a mile away do you let out your breath.

And then the tears begin again, and you cannot imagine now how you
will ever make them stop.

~~~~~

When you get home, all you can think of is a hot bath and curling up
on the sofa to sleep, maybe to cry a little more, but that isn't going
to be, it seems ... the door is unlocked when you get there, and when
you open it, Mic is there.

"Hello, love," he says, beaming. "I was beginning to worry about you.
Bit late, aren't you?"

"Mic, what are you doing here?" you say, your heart sinking. "I
thought I was supposed to meet you at your place."

"You were," he says, still cheerful. "When you didn't show, I got
worried, came over here to wait. You look tired, love."

He leans toward you for a kiss, and it's all you can do not to recoil,
but it's not his fault, none of this is his fault ... but to have his
kisses feel anything at all like Harm's tonight is more than you can
bear, and suddenly you're angry, at him, at Harm, at yourself, at the
entire universe and everyone in it.

You grab Mic's collar, pull him toward you and kiss him hard, grinding
your body against his, hoping you can pull this off, hoping you can
make the line between anger and passion blurry enough so that he won't
know and this night will be over and you'll all go on with your lives
as it seems it's been ordained you must. 

"Fuck me, Mic," you say, your lips only a fraction of an inch from
his. "Fuck me hard."

"Oh, you're a little spitfire tonight, aren't you?" he growls, but a
fire is blazing up in his eyes as he unbuttons your coat and slides
his hands beneath it. "What's got you so hot and bothered, Sarah?"

"Does it matter?" you say, your hand sliding over the front of his
jeans, feeling him growing hard, and you push the thoughts of another
man's hardness out of your mind fast, you push your body against the
body of the man you're going to marry. "I want you now, and I want you
rough," you say. 

Rough, yes; not gentle, not passionate, not loving. Rough and tumble,
everything that Harm isn't, everything that cannot remind you of him.
That's what it has to be this night.

Mic's hands are at your breasts now, and he's being rough with you,
just as you asked; if you hadn't asked for this, you'd complain, but
you won't. "On the floor," you say. "Now."

"I don't want to get too rough with you," he says, but the light in
his eyes tells another story. "I could hurt you."

"You won't," you say, but part of you thinks it's no more than you
deserve if he does. "Come on, Mic," you say, as you peel off your
uniform and lay it carefully over a chair. "Give me everything you've
got ..."

And as you lie down on the floor, as you open your body to the man
you've promised your life to, you wonder if you will ever again in
your life do anything that will make you despise yourself more than
this ...

~~~~~

It's dark now, and Mic is sleeping peacefully beside you, blissfully
unaware of just how truly unfaithful the woman he loves can really
be...

Long ago, when you were a little girl, when you were still small
enough to believe in fairy princesses and magic rings, you had a pink
nightgown with lace at the neck and the hem, and you used to wrap it
around your head and walk around the house with your eyes closed
tight, pretending you were a princess, too, pretending you were
marrying your prince, that happily ever after was just beyond the next
door, a tiny fairy step beyond.

And oh, you believed in it right up until the day you danced your
fairy dance past your father and the hem caught on the neck of a
bottle, his last bottle, spilling it, and he grabbed the fairy
nightgown, ripped it from your head, ripped it into shreds, pulling
your hair with it, kicking out at you and bellowing like a bull while
you screamed and screamed and screamed, I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm sorry,
I'm sorry while bits of pink lace drifted endlessly to the floor ...

And you've dressed yourself in pink lace for Mic, you've danced your
fairy dance with your eyes closed tight, but what you've broken now,
Sarah, you can never fix ... never.

All your life has been about putting things in the wrong places: a
nightgown around your hair, a ring on the wrong hand, a uniform coat
over your arm ... you in this bed. You stood there this evening, the
fairy princess, graciously forgiving him for being afraid and yet you
would not take that last, most dangerous step toward him, you would
not take that risk yourself that you called him coward for not
taking... 

For once in your life, Sarah, you tell yourself, you have to leave the
pink lace behind. You're not a princess, he's not a prince, but things
are in the wrong places and you can put them right, if you have the
courage.

Quietly, as quietly as you can, you slip from between the covers, you
put on the Marine green T-shirt and shorts that you wore to walk Jingo
this morning, you pick up your wallet and keys and you walk out,
praying for a courage to match his, praying that for once in your
life, you haven't waited too late.

~~~~~

North of Union Station 2350 Tango

You may as well face it; you're not sleeping tonight.

You tried so hard to get back in control of yourself after what
happened with Mac, but you needed some time alone for that, and you
didn't get it. You opened the door of your apartment, thinking the
first thing you'd do would be to call Renee and cancel your date, but
it was too late for that. She was there; not just there, but lying
across your bed, wearing spike heels, thigh-high stockings, a black
lace bra -- and your dress-white tunic and cover.

"Hey, sailor," she said, with what was apparently supposed to be a
salute. "New in town?"

"Renee, take that off," you said, curtly, setting down the cover you'd
been wearing. 

"Ooh, in a hurry, are we?" she said, getting on her knees and crawling
across the bed toward you. "I must have done better than I thought."

"The only thing I'm in a hurry for is for you to get out of my
uniform," you said. "You're not entitled to wear it, and even if you
were, that's hardly proper wear, so take it off -- now."

"Well," she said, and you couldn't mistake that tone of voice. She was
annoyed. "I spent half the afternoon at Victoria's Secret picking
these things out and that's the thanks I get?"

"It's got nothing to do with Victoria's Secret," you said. "Look, I'm
tired and I don't want to have this discussion. Can we just call it a
night and start over in the morning?"

"Oh, come on, Harm," she said, climbing off the bed and prancing
toward you on those impossibly spiky heels. "It's the weekend and I've
been waiting all week to have a little fun. I didn't mean to annoy
you... I just figured since you're so crazy about women in uniform..."

"Renee, I do not want to go there with you," you said, as you
unbuttoned your jacket and put it on a hanger. "Look, I know you went
to a lot of trouble, and I appreciate it, but I really am tired. I
don't think you're going to get what you want out of this tonight, so
why don't you just go home and I'll call you when I get up tomorrow,
okay?"

"No," she said, in that petulant tone that led Mac to dub her the
Video Princess. "I will not. You've been promising me all week, and
frankly, Harm, I am ready for a little fun. You may not feel like you
can last long, but baby, it's not gonna take me long, either, so come
on over here, okay?"

Get in step, boy toy. Your services are required.

You don't know what's worse: that she demanded it, or that you did it.
All you know is that touching her, kissing her, being inside her --
performing on demand with her -- after that sweet, loving interlude
with Mac, made you feel pretty much like an unpaid male prostitute, so
much so that you bought yourself another huge fight by sending Renee
home afterward.

At least the fight won't happen until tomorrow. She left about five
minutes ago in high dudgeon, and now you're lying here awake, wishing
to God things were different, wishing you knew how to make things
different, wishing ... 

You're so lost in thought that you don't really notice the door
opening until you see her silhouette against the windows, and
immediately you're annoyed. If she's coming back here to finish this
fight tonight, this relationship really may be over, here and now ...

"What's the matter?" you call out. "Did you forget something?"

But there's no answer, no words spoken, anyway; just a quiet footstep,
a quiet sniff, the sound of someone who's been crying, and your heart
sinks. You can't deal with the Pouting Princess tonight, you just
can't, and you're about to get out of the bed and go tell her so when
you realize that the silhouette you're seeing isn't Renee's ...

It's Mac's. 

She's walking toward you, slowly, hesitantly, and she has been crying,
she still is crying, but she's coming toward you, her steps quickening
as she gets nearer to you and all at once she's in your arms, a warm,
soft body wrapped in rough Marine green, and you realize with horror
that this bed smells of sex, that you smell of sex, of Renee, of sweat
and semen and perfume.

But just as you start to take her by the arms and move her away,
hoping to move her back before she can catch the scent, you pick up
the same scent on her ... the musky smell of her own sex, of sweat,
of... Brumby.

And she knows it, and yet she is here, warm and soft in your arms, her
tears warm and wet against your skin, falling back against the bed
with you, the bed that smells of another woman, and you know, you know
you have never in your life seen courage to match this, her coming
from his bed to yours, coming into your arms while you have the smell
of another woman still on you, doing that and bearing that pain just
to be with you, trusting that you will bear it for her, too...

You can't tell her this; you can barely breathe ... every muscle in
your body is trembling, and if you had the strength left, if it were
physically possible, you would make love to her right now, but it
isn't, and she knows it. 

All you can do is hold her, and whisper, "shh ... shh ... it's okay...
it's okay ..." 

And if it costs you everything you have, if it costs you your life,
you will make it all be okay for her. 

You will.

~~~~~

Mac


Sound sleep depends greatly on familiarity, on the same bed, the same
pillow, the same bedmate: Only in romance novels does lying next to
the man you love for the first time bring long, dreamless sleep. 

The mind and body don't work that way in real life. 

Change something, anything, about how and where you sleep, and sleep
becomes chancy, becomes off and on, each brief awakening greeted with
the realization that things are different, that this is not your bed,
that you are not where you normally are.

Tonight, you lie next to him and you want to sleep, and sometimes you
do, because you are exhausted, because you are where you want to be,
and because it is night and it is time to sleep.

Sleep comes, too, but only in brief, restless spells broken by anxious
dreams, and you are no longer young or inexperienced enough to expect
that it will get better tonight.

Tonight, you have added the terrible fear of what you will have to
face in the morning, but your mind won't deal with it: It's all coming
down to Jingo, and you awaken over and over, struck cold with fear
when you remember that Jingo will need to be walked and fed in the
morning.

You lie there, worrying over that one little detail to a ridiculous
degree, completely aware of why you're doing it but not one bit able
to stop. 

Jingo will need to go out. 

Will Mic take care of that? When will he wake up and realize you're
gone? Will he walk out in fury, or will he stop long enough to let
Jingo out? How will you know whether he has or not?

It's making you a little insane, and the worst of it is that you can't
stop it by facing the real problem, which is that nothing has really
been settled between you and the man sleeping next to you. 

You're here, and he took you into his arms, he held you so tenderly
while you cried, gave no sign at all that you weren't wanted or
welcomed in his bed, but nothing's been said or settled. 

Except for the fact that you're in the same bed, this could be nothing
more intimate than any one of a dozen nights you've spent in close
quarters on a ship, a submarine or in a hotel ... nothing's settled. 

What if he misread your intentions? You've still got to talk about
this in the morning, and talking about it is the one thing you've
never been able to do.

It hurt coming here last night, and the only reason you were able to
do it is that not coming here would have hurt even more, not coming
would have closed a door that might never have opened again ...

Eternity, you remember, eternity on a bridge on a night lit by stars,
when you looked into his eyes and saw love and saw longing and saw
fear, and that night you wanted to die but somehow, you think, you
kept him from seeing it.

The price of nondisclosure, it seems, was that you needed other arms
to hold you, and so you ran to Mic.

And now, having paid the price for all of that, having learned this
night, in a few short moments in his arms, in a shower of tears and a
sweet, heated embrace just how broad and despicable were your lies to
yourself, to him, to Mic, you had to come here before the door closed
again forever ... 

You had to come here, even though coming here when you did meant
waiting outside in the car, crying and cold, while outside rain
dripped on the windows, while inside he was making love to Renee, it
meant waiting in the car, ready to wait all night if it had to be that
way because there was no going back now ...

And when Renee finally left, when you finally got out of the car and
walked, barefoot, up the stairs and unlocked the door with the key
he'd given you and had probably forgotten, when you ran to his bed in
tears and fell into his arms, it hurt more than you'd ever imagined it
could, lying with him in a bed still warm from Renee's body ...

It was a choice you made, a painful choice, and it was the only choice
you could bear to make because you would a thousand times rather lie
in his arms when he was already spent from loving her than never to
lie in his arms at all ... 

You don't regret it, not for a moment ... but you don't know where to
go from here, and you don't know who's going to walk and feed your dog
in the morning.

It worries you. A lot.

But worried or not, you're here with him, and you know you never want
to sleep next to anyone else ever again.

You roll over onto your side and look at him, lying on his side,
facing you, one hand tucked under the pillow, the other lying next to
his face. He's been restless tonight, too, but for now, he's sleeping
peacefully. 

And as you watch him, you realize you were wrong. You may not have
made love yet, but there's an unfathomable intimacy to what's passed
between you this night, a nakedness of souls beyond anything you ever
dared imagine could be, and if some of your tears were for sorrow,
some at least were for joy when he opened his arms to you, because he
wasn't the only one marked by another lover's touch ...

But nothing's been settled, and there's still the morning to face.

You wonder if Harm will want to make love in the morning. 

Making love wasn't an option tonight, physically or emotionally, but
tomorrow is another story, and as badly as you want him, as much as
you know he wants you, you know it will be awkward getting to that
point. 

The truth is, there's something vaguely disturbing about making love
to two men in the space of twenty-four hours, and yet that seems to be
what you propose to do; hygienic considerations aside, it seems ...

Slutty.

That's the word your father would have used, isn't it? Slut. You slut.
He used to say it to you, and he made you believe it, too.

If you're not careful, you'll believe it again. Maybe you should ...
after what you've done to Mic ... after the way you behaved, and now
you're in another man's bed on the same night ... 

It's not the same, you tell your ghost father fiercely, it's not. I'm
not ... what you said. I'm not. 

No decent man will want you, Sarah, the ghost replies, but you have an
answer for him this time, because the man lying next to you is a very,
very decent man ... a very honorable, brave man, flawed, yes, but
determined, honest, a very decent man ...

And you know he wants you. He touched you and held you and kissed you
with such care and such skill and oh, yes, such love ... and pressed
up against you the whole time so that you felt him, all of him, so
hard, so very hard, and your hand was aching to touch him, to make him
shiver and groan and thrust against you, wanting more of your touch...

Oh, yes, he wants you ... and you want him just as badly, more than
you've ever wanted any man in your life. And now, it's only a matter
of when.

But you're still afraid, and much as you want his touch to inflame
you, you need it even more to soothe you ... you need to feel safe,
and in the dark reaches of the night, you aren't sure you ever will.

So get another man and fuck him, slut, the ghost says, ain't that what
you do when you're alone? and you shiver again, alone in the dark with
your ghost father, the ghost who sees right through you and names you
as he named you on the day of your birth. He names you slut, and it's
night, and he is ready to lie down beside you, between you and your
lover, where he always sleeps, unless you can keep him away.

But you are too old to believe in Prince Charming, and the man lying
beside you is too human to be a breaker of spells. You have to lay
your own ghost to rest, but it's easier, they say, with someone you
love beside you.

Slowly, very slowly so as not to make a sound, you reach out a timid
hand and touch his hair with your fingertips, gently ... not to
awaken, not even for a caress, but just to reassure yourself that he's
real, that this isn't a dream you're having ... you're really here in
his bed.

Whatever else you may believe about yourself and why you're here,
there's no denying that. Your future may not be settled, your ghosts
may not be laid to rest, but he did take you into his arms and into
his bed, and you will wake up together in the morning.

And if he did it once ...

It may be the wrong thing to do. Right now, you are too tired and too
afraid and lonely to care. You take the covers in one hand, holding
them up so they won't bunch up between you, and slide over next to
him; you take the hand that lies on top of his pillow and you lay it
on your shoulder, you fold yourself in his sleeping embrace.

He stirs, sleepily, and his eyes open, slowly focusing on yours. It
takes him a minute, but then he remembers, and he pulls you closer,
and you let out a sigh ... it is okay, it is, he will let you back
into his arms.

"You okay?" he says.

"Couldn't sleep," you say, curling your body closer to his. "I keep
worrying about Jingo."

"Jingo?" he says, in a tone of surprise. "Why Jingo?"

"Well," you say, and then you hesitate. This is a discussion better
held in daylight, you think, not at night in bed and certainly not
this night in this bed that still smells like Opium, which is what
Renee wears ...

You kiss him, a slow, warm kiss, and are almost abjectly grateful to
feel how thoroughly the kiss is returned in kind. Maybe, you think, I
won't underestimate him so badly when it's daylight and it's not so
dark and I'm not so tired and overwrought.

"I'll tell you in the morning," you say, and kiss him again. "Okay?"

"Okay," he says, amiably. "And whatever it is, don't worry. We'll deal
with it."

You would love to know how he can feel so certain, but that is just
Harm being Harm, you tell yourself with a smile, that is how he
infuriates you, amuses you and makes you feel safe ... he is always so
damn sure that he can do whatever needs doing, land the jet, win the
case, fight your battles ... 

And tonight, you will let it pass unchallenged, because you need so
badly to feel safe.

You start to roll over, back to what it seems will be your side of the
bed, but he drapes one arm around your waist and pulls you back toward
him. Spooning, you think, straight out of high school romances, and
you smile, feeling grateful again and sad at the same time. 

You do need him this way tonight, foolish as it is. 

"Harm?" you whisper.

"Mmm?" he mumbles, and you know he is almost asleep again.

"Are you comfortable like this?" you say, and you're not sure whether
you mean your weight on his other arm or the weight of your fears and
his ...

You feel him shift behind you, and then his lips on your cheek,
pressing softly.

"I've never been more comfortable in my life," he says, quietly. "Go
to sleep, Sarah. I know we've got things to deal with, but they can
wait until morning. Just sleep now."

You wrap your arms around his and hug him fiercely. "All right," you
whisper.

No, there's no magic here; just a man who doesn't mind being awakened
in the night without explanation, a man who knows you're afraid but
doesn't make an issue of it, a man who knows how foolish you can be
sometimes and still is glad you're here.

When you awaken again, it's morning.

And you're not alone.

~~~~~

Watching Sarah MacKenzie awaken in your bed is like watching the sun
rise, and watching the sun rise is like seeing the universe reborn. 

It looks that way to you now, and it looked that way to you the day
you first watched it from the deck of an aircraft carrier.

You didn't see it your first morning out, or even your first week or
your first month out. On your first cruise, you were too full of your
own importance as a member of the air wing -- and, if the truth be
told, too damn scared of what kind of havoc you might be about to
create -- to spend any time doing anything so squishily romantic as
watching the sun come up. 

No, not you. Tourists on cruise ships watch the sun rise, not aviators
on the flight deck of a nuclear aircraft carrier, and you were an
aviator, by damn: You had the gold wings and the bomber jacket to
prove it.

That's what you told yourself, and you believed it, right up until the
day you made your first pre-dawn trap. You made a perfect approach and
you snagged the number-two wire and landed that bird like you'd been
born in the cockpit, and afterward you were bopping along the flight
deck, tired as hell but feeling, as your RIO so colorfully put it,
like somebody who got a fur coat and now thought he was King Fucking
Kong, when you just happened to turn around and you saw it.

One minute it wasn't there, and the next minute it was, and it came up
fast, too, faster than you'd ever have believed it could, roaring up
above the endless horizon the way it had for millions of years before
you were born and would for millions of years after you were gone.

And all you could do was stand there in awe and watch it.

You'd never admit it, but every day after that, from that morning
until the day you lost your ticket, you tried to get up to the flight
deck or the LSO deck or the hangar deck, somewhere that you could look
out and see that sunrise, so you could feel part of the world again
amid the steam and the aircraft fuel and the endless scream and thud
of the catapults.

Then one day you flew a mission over Baghdad, laughing for the sheer
joy of it all, laughing because it was so good to go so fast, to have
such a huge and heavy beast as the F-14 under your command, to be
young and strong and powerful as hell.

The next day, the Iraqi government released photographs of the
bioweapons factory you'd destroyed, but instead of showing
manufacturing equipment and ordnance, the photographs showed the
bodies of infants and children and old men, patients at the hospital
they claimed you'd targeted and you sat there in shock, holding the
newspapers, and you told yourself it wasn't true, it wasn't, it
couldn't be.

The brass agreed with you: The intel was good, your aim was good, you
did it right. It was a weapons factory, not a hospital; the photos
were fakes. Even the evening news reports gave the pictures no
credence.

The next day, you went up on the flight deck before sunrise and you
stood next to the tower. You stood there watching the sunrise and told
yourself the photographs meant nothing. You swore you had the balls to
resist what they were trying to do to you and that you'd never give in
to that kind of propaganda.

And then you dropped to your knees and you cried anyway because even
if those children weren't in the path of the airstrike, other people
were, lots of them, men and women, mothers and fathers. You may not
have left the children dead, but you left some of them orphans ... 

You didn't cry after the next bombing raid, but you stopped laughing
as you flew through the air, and you stopped feeling like King Kong as
you strode across the deck. Your eyes grew tired and your face grim.

Eventually, you came to understand that whatever had happened, you had
done your duty; whatever pain went with that, you would learn to bear
because that, too, was part of your duty.

But you never stopped looking at the sunrise; not then, not after
Libya, not even after the ramp strike, after you were released from
sick bay and they told you that you wouldn't be flying again.

You watched, and you asked why, and you tried to believe what they
told you, that it wasn't your fault, that you'd have made the trap if
your RIO hadn't punched out, that it was the counterforce of the
explosive ejection that sent the F-14 crashing downward onto the ramp.

You tried to believe it, but all you could see was his face, all you
could hear was his voice saying he was with you to hell and back ...

You turned and you went below and you didn't see the sunrise again
from a carrier deck for years. 

You have seen a lot in the years since, and you have heard stories
that have made you wonder why God didn't ring down the curtain on the
human race long ago. You've seen the terror in the eyes of a woman
who's been raped, you've seen the anger in the eyes of a father who'd
rather have a dead son than a gay one and you've seen the body of a
battered, murdered child lowered into a pauper's grave. You've come so
close to losing your faith in mankind and you've wondered, more than
once, what the hell you were putting yourself through this for.

And yet you still find the sunrise beautiful, as you still find Sarah
MacKenzie beautiful, more beautiful than she was the day you met her,
whatever ugliness may have come to her world, whatever it's done to
her or to you.

She is your sunrise now, and you know you can get up and do what you
have to do for one more day and you can bear the pain, you can bear
the disillusionment, you can bear almost anything if you can wake up
in the morning and see her here with you.

And seeing her awaken is like a sunrise ... one minute she's asleep,
and the next she isn't, and those impossibly large, dark eyes are
open, confused for a moment, and then shy, and you reach out a hand to
her and help her to her feet and take her into your arms, and the soft
sigh you hear as she nestles against you nearly breaks your heart.

"How long have you been up?" she says, her hands and her face warm
against your chest as you rock her gently, your chin resting on her
head.

"Not long," you say. "I was just coming to tell you that the shower's
free and the coffee's almost ready."

"Mmm," she says, and she turns to look up at you, a soft smile on her
lips and in her eyes. "Do I get breakfast too?"

"You do if you don't stay in the shower too long," you say, and you
kiss her quickly. "Otherwise, no promises."

"Let me guess," she says, wrapping her arms around your neck. "Egg
white omelet with steamed vegetables and whole wheat toast."

"For you, I'll leave the yolks in," you say, and her soft laugh makes
you fall a little bit more in love, you don't know how she does that
to you but she does, so you kiss her again, and then you let her go.
"Go on, Marine, hit the rain room."

She turns and walks toward the bathroom, but just as she gets there
she turns back, one hand on the glass brick partition. 

"You know, I don't actually have anything to change into," she says, a
bit apologetically. "For that matter, I don't have a toothbrush. I
don't suppose ..."

"Look in the medicine cabinet, there should be one that's not opened,"
you say. "And I'll find you something to wear. Trust a Marine not to
know how to pack a seabag."

"I was in a hurry," she says, giving you a smile that goes straight to
your heart and breaks it all over again before proceeding on to your
groin, where it has an entirely different effect. 

She steps behind the glass and as soon as you hear the water running,
you grab the sheets from the bed and make it up with fresh linens. Not
that you don't both know what went on here last night before she got
here, but there's no reason to underline it by making her watch as you
change the sheets.

You turn to put the old linens in the laundry hamper, but you stop,
transfixed, at the sight of her body through the glass brick as she
showers. The image is blurred and transformed but unmistakably her,
and it stirs you as nothing else ever has. 

You think you ought to look away -- this is a little too much like
being a Peeping Tom -- but then you think that maybe, before this day
is over, she'll want you to look, and not only to look but to touch,
to taste, to hold, to make her yours, and that thought, combined with
the sight of her hands moving over her naked, wet skin, is too much
for you right now, and you have to look away. 

You stuff the sheets in the hamper and quickly put the others on,
moving with a speed and economy of motion that only an Annapolis
graduate can really appreciate. Marine Corps boot camp is, after all,
only a matter of weeks; the Naval Academy gets four years of your life
to teach you to make up a rack, and teach you they do. It's a lesson
that sticks with you.

After a moment's thought, you take a T-shirt, sweat pants and a
flannel shirt and lay them on the bed for her to wear -- there's no
underwear, and you try not to think about that too much, either --and
you go back to the kitchen to finish making breakfast. 

A few minutes later, the water stops running; you hear her brushing
her teeth, moving around in the bedroom; then there's a silence, a
slight creaking of the bedsprings, and then nothing.

You wait a minute, thinking she'll be out soon, but then you hear a
sniffle, almost as though she's crying again, and you go to see what's
wrong.

"Mac?" you call out as you walk toward the bedroom, thinking as you do
that you're going to have to figure out the name thing pretty soon,
too. Is she still Mac to you and Sarah only in bed, or does she want
to be Sarah off duty and Mac on duty? 

Great, Rabb, you think, giving yourself a hard mental kick; you
haven't been with her eight hours yet and you're already coming up
with office-romance complications. Smart boy. Very smart.

You're still in the middle of your self-recrimination when you reach
the bedroom and realize that Mac -- Sarah? -- is sitting on the edge
of the bed with her back to you, wearing the sweatpants and holding
the T-shirt in front of her, but that's all. What greets you is her
smooth, naked back, and for a moment you hesitate, but she turns her
head and looks at you.

"It's okay," she says, with a sniffle that tells you your guess was
right; she's crying again, and you don't know why, but you know you
need to figure it out and fast. 

You walk around the bed and stand in front of her; she's still got the
T-shirt clutched in front of her, but she doesn't seem ill at ease
about that. Too many nights spent in close quarters, you think, or
maybe she already thinks of you as lovers, even though you've done
little more than kiss and embrace.

In spite of your utter confusion about just exactly what's going on
here, you find you like that idea -- a lot.

"What's the matter?" you say, hands on your hips because you really
don't know where else to put them.

She nods toward the bed; sit down, the gesture says, so you do.

"I was worried about Jingo," she says, then sniffs again and smiles up
at you as if to say she knows how silly that sounds.

"That's what you said last night," you say, and you rest your arms on
your bent knees, clasping your hands loosely. You'd like to touch her,
but you don't have any sense that she's given permission for that yet,
so this seems like the safest course to take. "Is something wrong with
him?"

She shakes her head, looking back down at the floor. "No," she says.
"It's just ... I left last night ... I mean, I left Jingo there ...
with Mic."

She doesn't say anything else. She really doesn't have to. 

"You think Mic is still there?" you say.

"I don't know," she says, shaking her head. "If he is, he's probably
already let Jingo out. He usually does when I'm not there. It's just
that last night, you know, when I left ... he was asleep ... "

"I know," you say, not wanting her to finish. You look up and around,
not at anything in particular, just anywhere but at her because this
is so damn awkward, trying to advise the woman you slept with last
night on how to approach the man she had sex with before she got here.

You're pretty sure no one's ever going to write a self-help book that
covers this situation.

"I guess I should just go home and make sure Jingo's all right," she
says, with another sniffle.

"Do you want me to go with you?" you ask her, looking at her again,
but she shakes her head.

"I can't hide behind you, Harm, much as I'd like to," she says, and
now she is looking at you again, and her eyes are clear and steady,
the eyes of the calm, brave woman you've come to know so well. "Sooner
or later, I'll have to face him. You can't run away from your
problems."

"No, you can't, but you also can't fly without a ground crew," you
say, and the metaphor makes her smile at you indulgently, as you knew
it would, but then her face crumples again.

Without thinking, you put your arm around her and she lays her head on
your shoulder, already so trusting of you in this new relationship,
trusting you even though you don't really know what's wrong, you don't
know what to do or what to say, you don't know what she needs or how
to take care of her ...

You start to say something, to offer some suggestion, but she shakes
her head; she knows you too well.

"It's all right, Harm," she says. "I'll figure something out. But
thanks for listening," and she turns her head and kisses your cheek,
and then your temple, and then the pulse beat next to your ear and
your breath is beginning to catch in your throat; she is looking up at
you, and somehow those eyes of hers are telling you she really, really
wants to be kissed right now, so you lean over and kiss her.

And God, her arms are soft around your neck, gently pulling you down
to her, so gently and lovingly that you don't even notice at first
that she's dropped the T-shirt somewhere and that from the waist up,
at least, she's naked in your arms and that the comfort kiss has
turned into something much, much more.

You're stretched out on the bed with her, and your mind is empty of
anything except the feeling of her skin, her beautiful skin, the color
of caramel, the color of Persia, the color of the Cherokee, smooth and
dark and beautiful ...

She's lying beneath you now, whispering in your ear what she wants you
to do and you do want to, God, you do, you're so hard and so ready to
plunge into her that rational thought has become damn near impossible,
so you kiss your way slowly down to her breasts. You take one nipple
into your mouth and nibble on it gently, feeling her arch up beneath
you, feeling her hands in your hair holding you closer, hearing her
sharp intake of breath, her whispered, "Oh, God ..."

You could have her now, this moment, you could have everything you've
ever wanted from life, but you can't do it now and you know why even
if she doesn't. It may be the hardest thing you've ever had to do, but
you kiss her once more and then let her go and roll onto your back,
damning yourself for an idiot.

"Harm?" she says, rising up on one elbow, and you can see she's
genuinely alarmed. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," you say, and you reach up to touch her hair, trying to
reassure her. "Nothing that we can't fix, anyway. We just can't do
this yet."

"Why not?" she says, and she's a little relieved, but only a little. 

"For one thing," you say, and then you pause. This is going to take
you back out onto the dangerous turf, but only children would avoid
this conversation just because it was unpleasant, so you go on. 

"Mac," you say, "there is a bedside table over there, and it has a
drawer in it, but that drawer is empty, if you know what I mean."

"Oh," she says, understanding, but then her eyes brighten. "That
doesn't matter, I'm on the p ..." 

And then she stops again, and you can almost see the flush of shame in
her eyes as she remembers: Neither of you has been celibate lately,
and being with each other is going to put an end to your claim to
being monogamous, too.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I wasn't thinking."

"You don't have anything to be sorry about," you say, and you take her
back into your arms. "It's not a big deal. One trip to the drugstore
and it's taken care of."

"So is that the only reason, or do you have more serious
reservations?" she says, more quietly, snuggling against you.

"Not about being with you, I don't," you say, firmly. "I've got no
doubts about that at all."

She smiles, almost shyly, and you wonder, not for the first time, how
a woman so brave and so lovely can doubt her own worth this way.

"Mac, are you really sure this is what you want?" you ask her, and
immediately you wish you'd kept your mouth shut, because she looks
hurt; not just hurt, either, but frightened.

"Of course I'm sure," she says. "I wouldn't have come here the way I
did if I wasn't sure. How can you even ask me that?"

"Mac, I'm not doubting you," you say. "And I'm glad you're here, don't
get me wrong; I'm just having a hard time believing that all these
tears and nighttime shivers are because you're worried about whether
Jingo gets fed."

"You know it's more than that," she says, and she rests her head
against your shoulder again. "It's just easier to worry about Jingo
than it is to think about facing Mic or ... other things."

"What other things?" you say. 

"It's like ... voices," she says. "Ghosts from the past." She shakes
her head in annoyance. "I don't mean that literally. Just ... things.
I don't know."

That's enough of that, says your inner Martian. The Male Confusion
Level has been exceeded; time for Decisive Action.

You kiss her forehead and sit up, bringing her with you. "I know one
thing," you say. "I know your breakfast is getting cold, and so are
you. Come on, get dressed, we'll eat breakfast, I'll drive you to your
place and get Jingo, we'll take him for a run and then after that, we
can figure out what to do next."

"You don't need to drive me," she begins, but you interrupt her.

"Sure I do," you say, smiling. "That's what Marine stands for: My Ass
Rides In Navy Equipment. I'd be letting down my side if I didn't
provide you with transportation."

"Very funny, squid," she says, but she is smiling. "You know, we could
always come back here," she says, as she stands and pulls the T-shirt
over her head. "I mean, after we go to the drugstore ..."

Roger that, your libido replies, but your practical mind immediately
voices an objection. No go.

"There, uh, might be a problem with that," you say. 

"Another problem, sailor?" she says, raising an eyebrow. "I'm
beginning to think your heart's not in this. What's the problem this
time?"

"The problem is that Renee has a key to this place," you say, "and I
don't think I want her walking in on us."

"Oh, God, no," she says, and while you can tell she's serious, she's
also laughing. 

"What's so funny?" you say. "That would not be a pleasant event for
any of us, I promise you."

"I know it wouldn't," she says, and she kisses you. "And nothing's
funny. Not a damn thing. So while you're in the mood for promises, can
I get you to promise me something else?"

"I will if I can," you say, but you're on guard again, without wanting
to be or meaning to be, but the response has become automatic lately.
You know you're a goddamn fool, but that's the way it is.

"You can," she says, and she is suddenly serious again, her eyes
darker and deeper than ever, so dark and deep you could fall into them
forever, and the heat from her skin is intoxicating, her voice and
everything about her enough to make a man drunk for days.

"All right, then, what is it?" you say, and your voice is low and
rough in your own ears, but you can't help that, and it doesn't matter
anyway; she knows what she's doing to you, and she knows you like it
and best of all it's making her happy, truly happy, it's making her
feel a little bit better about herself to know how much you want her.

And God knows you do want her; the heat between you is intense, like
the heat of her dressed in Beduin robes, standing in the desert sunset
with her arms around you, and it was heat everywhere and sun
everywhere and in that moment you could not doubt how much she loved
you.

You cannot doubt it now, standing in this new heat of hers, this heat
that radiates from her every touch, her every movement.

"Promise me, Harm," she says, softly, putting her arms around your
neck again, and the heat of her fills you, body and soul, "promise me
that before this weekend is over, you'll be my lover."

Be my lover ... promise me ... 

And there it is, all at once, appearing with perfect clarity like the
sun rising. 

It's the reason your mind keeps straying away toward irrelevancies
like what name you'll call her or how you make a bed, the reason you
sit there with your hands in your lap and wonder what to do while she
cries, the reason you let her walk out of your office yesterday, the
reason she came to your bed last night instead of the other way
around.

My lover ... 

It's all you've wanted for so long, but the truth is, you're afraid...
you can't tell her, you can never tell her, but you're terrified of
what will happen if you let yourself need her that badly.

Need ... even the word shakes you, because if you've learned one thing
from your life it's that to need someone is just begging fate to take
them away from you, and no matter what else you've survived in your
life, you could not survive if that happened to her.

She's waiting for your answer, and you're damn near paralyzed with
fear, you can't answer her, until you look into her eyes, deep into
her eyes, and what you see there isn't just heat, it's warmth, because
the sunrise isn't just fire, it's light, it's how you light the way
ahead, and you know you can do this if you can just keep your eyes on
her ... only on her ...

You clear your throat and you speak.

"I promise, Sarah," you say, and she smiles and enfolds you in her
arms again, her warm, soft arms, the arms you have just decided
irrevocably to let yourself need, these arms and none other for the
rest of your life.

~~~~~

When you remember this morning, you think, you will remember it in
shades of yellow: Orange juice and omelets, sunlight and buttered
toast, a yellow tank top, a brightly colored coffee mug, all of it
lovely and golden and new, buttercup yellow and citrus orange and
fresh as your first morning with the man who will hold your heart
forever.

You know there will be other things to remember: moments of happiness,
and ecstasy, and sheer joy, tenderness and sadness and tranquillity,
and all of them you will store up in your heart to take out and
remember, one by one, when you remember this day.

For now, it's enough just to be with him in the yellow sunlight,
sitting with him, smiling and talking as though nothing has really
changed, as though you're just Mac and he's just Harm and you're just
having breakfast together as you have --

God, how many times?

How many breakfasts, in a wardroom or an officer's mess, a diner or a
restaurant? How many cups of coffee in a car or on an airplane, in a
helo or a conference room early in the morning? You've even had
breakfast here in his apartment before; it's not new. 

You're comfortable together like this, and you love being comfortable
with him. In fact, although you'd be a little ashamed to admit it,
you're proud of how easy he finds it to be with you, even when so much
has happened. You're sure he could never be so calm and happy and so
at ease with Kate or Renee or any other woman after as much turmoil as
you've brought him in the past 24 hours, and yet here you are ...

So you sit, and you talk a little shop, and you share a little gossip.
You talk about the new Marine cammies with the removable sleeves that
don't bind around the arms like the old, roll-up sleeves do, about the
Air Force's new F-22 Raptor and whether it's worth a damn, about the
political troubles in Okinawa and the young sailors and Marines who
aren't helping matters with their behavior and has anyone over there
ever heard of military discipline? 

You talk about last Friday's ruling from the Court of Military Appeals
and you wonder if it will have to be applied retroactively to all DDO
cases, because if it does, you may drown in the paperwork and you're
already drowning in it.

You talk about people in the office and doesn't Tiner seem to be
finding a lot of reasons to talk to that young petty officer in admin
and doesn't she seem to be bringing a lot of paperwork to the
admiral's desk? 

You talk about Bud and Harriet and how they're doing, about the Bud
Roberts you used to know, the wide-eyed young lieutenant who believed
in UFOs and Bermuda Triangles and ESP and you both agree that the new
Bud is a good man, a very good man, strong and brave and able to take
what life has dealt him but that you wish life had left behind some of
the wonder and imagination and sweet childlike nature that once was
Bud Roberts ...

You could go on talking forever, you think, and it only occasionally
seems strange to remember that such a short while earlier you were
lying half-naked in his arms, pleading with him to make love to you...

He was right when he said you had to wait, of course, and you're
mature enough to understand that; you're familiar with the realities
of responsible sex. Yes, he was right, but you can't help being just a
little afraid that there's something else wrong, something about you,
the way you're acting or something you've said that makes him
hesitant.

But he did promise ... and whatever else is hard or confusing about
this, whatever you've done to hurt each other over the years, you know
he keeps his promises. He answered you honestly when you told him not
to make promises he couldn't keep.

"I haven't yet," he said.

And he hasn't; at least, not to you, and he promised that you would be
lovers before this weekend is over, so you will. It's that simple.

You will be lovers ... and you think of him as your lover, with all
that you know of him in the flesh, in the mind and in the soul ... you
think of him as he moves, his touch, the kisses you've already drunk
of so greedily, all the things you've imagined doing with him and all
the things you want to offer him, all the things there are to be
offered ...

Those thoughts leave you dazed, as if there were no thought or feeling
left to you but this heat and this wanting, as if all that you are
were his already, you in the flesh, in the mind and in the soul,
relentlessly, inevitably his with neither will nor desire to be
otherwise.

But how will it happen?

Will it be as easy and natural as this sunlit moment, surrounded by
familiar, prosaic things, coffee cups and omelets and morning
newspapers? Will it be more imposing, requiring so much more of you,
candlelight, a cocktail dress, the quiet clinking of crystal and
silver and hushed voices of servers going about their business?

Or will it be none of those -- will it be awkward, fumbling, too
embarassing to remember later, the deadly serious business of getting
that first time out of the way so that the real relationship can begin
later?

That, you know, happens more often than not with new lovers, but you
long so for it to be different with him ... 

But there is still one thing left to do ...

You're so lost in thought that you don't notice him standing behind
you until you feel his hands on your arms, stroking gently, and you
look up at him, startled.

"Hey," he says, and drops a kiss on your forehead. "You looked like
you were a million miles away."

"I was just thinking," you say, leaning against his chest, and you
take his hands in yours and draw his arms around you, holding him
closer, needing his warmth. 

"Thinking about how badly I'm going to whip your ass when we run this
morning?" he says, and in spite of yourself, you laugh.

"In your dreams," you say. "In your pathetic little dreams."

He laughs, too, and gives you a little squeeze. "So what were you
thinking about?" he says, a little more quietly.

For a moment, you think you won't tell him, but not telling him won't
make it go away, pretending won't make it go away. You learned that
lesson the hard way.

And with his arms around you, you know that you can say this, although
the sweet peace of this morning will be gone after you do.

"I was just thinking," you say, slowly, "that I wish I knew what to
say to Mic when I see him today."

And for a long time afterward, the two of you just stand there,
holding each other in the silence, trying to give each other strength,
trying to ignore the way the yellow sunlight gleams on the diamond
ring that lies on the counter next to your wallet and your keys.

~~~~~

Ten minutes later, Harm's driving you to your apartment, and you still
have no real idea what you'll find when you get there: Mic could still
be asleep in your bed for all you know, or he could be awake, sitting
by the door in a glowering fury, ready to launch himself at Harm the
minute the door opens.

What Mic might do is bad enough, although you know Harm can defend
himself ... but what Mic might say could be so much worse. What if he
told Harm how you acted last night, what you said, what you asked him
to do to you? 

The thought alone is enough to send a flush of shame to your face, and
you turn away, looking out the side window, hoping Harm hasn't
noticed, but your luck isn't holding out that well.

"What's the matter, Sarah?" he says, quietly, still looking at the
road ahead.

"Nothing," you say, but it's perfunctory; somehow, you know you're
going to tell him. Not all of it, maybe not even very much, but some,
because you're a seasoned enough litigator to know that it's better to
introduce the damning evidence yourself; that blunts its impact with
the members.

You take a deep breath and square your shoulders; you remind yourself
that you're a Marine and a lawyer, and an adult. You can do this.

"Harm," you say, in as matter-of-fact a voice as you can manage, "if
Mic's there when we get there, it could get ugly."

"Tell me something I don't know," he says, dryly. 

"What I mean is," you say, and you hear your voice beginning to
falter, so you start over. "Harm, if Mic decides he wants to ... make
me look bad in front of you, I guess ... he might ... say some things
about ... you know, last night ... between me and him."

Wonderful, Sarah, you tell yourself in disgust. Very firm and adult.
You blew that sky-high.

"Mac, I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at here," he says, and
you know from his careful phrasing, the tone of his voice, that he'd
give almost anything not to be having this conversation; on the other
hand, he knows you wouldn't have brought it up without a reason.

You take another deep breath -- it didn't help the first time, but who
knows? -- and try again.

"I mean," you say, and then you let out a sigh of frustration. "There
were some things I said to him last night because ... because I wanted
to be with you and I wasn't, things that might sound kind of... I
don't know, strange ... in the light of day."

"Okay, I'm beginning to think that I really, really don't want to hear
what comes next," he says, but he's trying to smile; he's not telling
you to shut up, he's just telling you it hurts.

Tell me something I don't already know, you think, and you try one
more time.

"I just ... I wanted to try to put you out of my mind, so I told
him... I asked him to be ... you know, rough," you say, and you stop
there, too ashamed to go on. 

"Are you saying he hurt you?" he says, and the barely controlled anger
in his voice is alarming; you hadn't realized he would take it that
way.

"No," you say, quickly. "Nothing like that, I promise. I just ... it
was just the way I was acting, like ... a tramp or something. I
thought he might ... throw that in my face if he saw us together
today. I just wanted you to be prepared, that's all."

For a moment he doesn't reply, and you think you know the reason; he
is disgusted by the picture you've painted, but he's trying to hide
it, and you can't look at him, you can't bear to see the expression in
his eyes right now, but then you realize he's pulled over to the curb,
he's stopping, and then his hand is on your cheek, gently turning your
face toward his.

"Let me get this straight," he says, softly. "You're afraid I'll think
less of you because you wanted or you needed something in bed and you
said so?"

All you can do is nod, dumbly. This is not the reaction you were
expecting.

"Sarah," he says, and there is nothing but compassion in his eyes,
"sweetheart, where did you ever get the idea that something like that
would bother me?"

Sweetheart? That's a new one, but definitely one you can live with...
very definitely, especially under these circumstances.

"I ... I just," you begin, then you have to start over. "I mean, I...
well, you know, sometimes, when a woman behaves that way ... I mean,
for some men, it's a little too much ..."

He lets out a long sigh then, closing his eyes and shaking his head,
then he opens his eyes again and looks at you.

"I owe you an apology," he says, very quietly. "You tried to tell me
this morning that something was wrong, and I cut you off. The only
excuse I can offer is that it's all been pretty overwhelming to both
of us, me as well as you."

"You don't have to apologize," you say, but he interrupts you.

"Yes, I do," he says, and now he's not just touching your face, he's
caressing it, and his touch is so calming, more calming than anything
you can remember, "and if we had more time," he says, "if I weren't
haunted by images of poor Jingo sitting by the door with all four legs
crossed, I'd ask you whose voice you're hearing and what it's saying,
but I'm beginning to think I know anyway."

You have to smile thinking of Jingo, but you can feel tears coming
into your eyes, too. He remembers. He remembers, and he did hear you
and he does care.

"Just do one thing for me right now," he says, still stroking your
cheek gently. "Just listen to my voice, and what I'm telling you,
which is that you have done absolutely nothing of which you should be
ashamed. I personally can't think of anything I'd like better than to
hear you tell me just exactly what you want from me."

You shake your head. "Men say that," you say, with a little sniffle.
"Chris said it, and I tried, and he seemed happy at first, but then he
started treating me so differently, telling me what a hot little bitch
I was, that I was his slut, all those things, and I didn't want him
talking to me that way. I just wanted him to hold me, to tell me he
loved me, but when I told him that, he said I'd already showed him
what I really wanted from him."

"I'm not Chris," he says, and he kisses you, and the kiss is gentle,
drawing you out of this dark place in your mind and back into his
eyes, where there's all the love in the world, where nothing you've
said or done has cost you his respect or his love ...

And for the first time since you left his place, you feel like you can
breathe again.

"Harm," you say, and you try to smile, "you'd better think about what
you're saying, because if I ever really tell you what I'm thinking
about doing with you, you may be sorry you started this ..."

"Promises, promises," he says, and then his mouth covers yours again.

~~~~~

You find the note as soon as you walk in your door.

"Sarah," it says. "I found your car outside Rabb's building at 3 a.m.
No need to tell me what you've decided. I just want to know why. Meet
me at the coffee shop at the end of the block at 10.30. Mic.

"P.S. I walked Jingo. At least I'm good for something to you."

~~~~~

"You don't have to go, you know," he says.

He's sitting on your couch and you're tucked safely under his arm,
still holding the note crumpled in one hand, the other hand resting
over his heart.

But you've stopped crying.

"I know that," you say. "But he just wants me to say it to his face. I
owe him that."

"Are you sure you'll be okay?" he says, and you almost smile. You know
what he means, and in that sense, yes, you know you'll be okay. Mic
doesn't hit women, although he's hit plenty of men in his life.

Including, of course, Harmon Rabb Jr. 

"I'll be fine," you say, but you're not fine right now, and he sees
it, and he puts both arms around you and holds you close. You wrap
your arms around his waist and hold him with an intensity that
surprises you both.

"Mac," he says, and his voice is low and strong as you press your ear
to his chest, his heart beating low and strong behind it. He seems to
be everywhere around you, and that calms you. "If you want," he says,
"I'll wait outside while you talk to him."

You shake your head. "No," you say. "I want you to go for your run.
It'll be easier for me that way, really."

"And after that?" he says.

But there's really no need for him to ask that question, is there? No
matter how afraid you are or how guilty you feel, this has been
building for too long now and you cannot, you will not put it off
longer. Another hour, yes, two if it absolutely must be, but not
longer than that. 

Not one minute longer.

"After that," you say, and you look up at him, "I want you to go home,
shower, change, pack your seabag, make that trip to the drugstore or
whatever else you need to do, and then I want you to come back to me."

"Okay," he says, and his voice is deeper, huskier. He feels it too,
this heat. It's stronger; you may burn to nothingness if he doesn't
touch you soon, soon ...

If you could just have a little of him, just enough to give you
strength for what is to come, to hold you until he returns, but you
are too old for that, the litany of teasing, the "this far, and no
further, no touching below the waist" chant as though you were still
in high school -- and you have put him through too much already, far
too much, but the thought won't go away ... just a little, just a
little ... his arms around you, his skin next to yours, his hands, his
mouth ... 

"I would give a year's pay to know what's on your mind right now," he
says, and his voice isn't just husky now, it's trembling, and you know
that he can see the heat in you, it almost shimmers the air around
you; it steals your breath, stings your skin and only he can soothe
it.

And he said you could tell him ... he said you could, if you wanted
something, and you believe him, because you trust him, because you
know him as a good and honest man.

You look into his eyes, still startled by their color, the color of a
sunlit sea, and you move very slowly across his body to reach his
mouth, because this kiss needs to be a promise, he needs to know this
is not a casual request.

"I was thinking," you say, stunned to hear the deep huskiness of your
own voice, "of how much I want just a little of what's waiting for me
this afternoon."

His eyes don't move from yours, but his breathing slows, grows deeper,
and his tongue darts out quickly to wet his lips, and he is so still
in your arms, this good man, tall and strong and able to take what he
wants so badly but holding back, because the choice is and always will
be yours.

"You can have anything you want, Sarah," he says, and his voice is
nearly gone now. 

"I know," you say, and then his mouth is on yours, hot and hungry, and
you open your mouth to him, you take him in, and his kiss is a
firestorm, leaving you no breath but his.

His tongue feels good in your mouth, strong, tasting of him, and you
pull him in deeper, as if you had to draw breath from him or die.

It's so hard to think but you don't need to think, you only need more
of him. You need to feel the strength of his arms, to know the force
of his longing, to learn the sounds he makes and the way he moves when
your touch gives him pleasure.

There is so much to learn, so much to savor ... that sharp intake of
breath when you push him down on the couch and straddle him ... the
way he throws his head back when your mouth is on his throat, tasting
the saltiness of his skin ... the sudden tension in his shoulders as
your hands learn the shape of each hard muscle in his arms, his chest,
his back, his hips, his legs ... and your name on his lips, low and
pleading, oh, so low ... 

And once you know how it is with him, you have to have all those
things again, over and over again ...

You feel him shiver as your hands and your lips move slowly over his
nipples, and you smile and nuzzle against him like a cat, as if you
had no idea what you were doing to him, but you do ... you know
exactly what you're doing to him, and you like it very much, very much
indeed.

"I want to take this off," you say, pulling at his shirt, but you
can't stop what you're doing long enough so he does it, he rips it off
almost one-handed, and you smile again, moved beyond words because
he's doing this for you, just for you ...

"Anything else?" he says, and he's breathing so fast, and he's hard,
God, is he hard; you can see it, you can feel it, pushing against you
through the cotton knit running shorts. 

But you just shake your head. "Not yet," you say, trailing your
fingers over his chest, his ribs and his arms, over the hard muscles,
the golden skin, the body you've seen so many times but not like
this... 

You can touch him now, you can be as greedy or as passionate or as
curious about him as you like and it will be all right, he wants you
to be this way with him, he wants you ... his arms are hard around
you, his hands are slipping under the clothing he gave you, seeking
out the soft places in your flesh that have wanted him for so long.

"Here," you say, and you lift the T-shirt, you take his hand and lay
it on your breast because you ache, you absolutely ache for him and
you know if he touches you it will feel better.

"There?" he says, his lips soft against your ear.

"There," you say, slowly, the word barely more than a sigh as his hand
moves over your nipple, his skin pleasantly rough, maddeningly rough,
and you capture his mouth again, kissing him as deeply as you know
how, pushing against his hand, wanting to feel more and more of him,
so you push yourself as closely as you can against his hardness.

This is right to the heart of the matter, you think ... you and him,
male and female, hard and soft, everything in balance as it should be
and you wanting, you hot, wet, grinding against him ...

A low hum starts deep in your throat, and he's moving against you,
too, thrusting gently back, and this is almost it, this is almost what
you want ...

And this, you realize, is where you have to stop; here, or not at all.

Reluctantly, you take your mouth from his, lay your head on his chest;
he's hot, so hot, his breathing is so rapid and his heart racing ...
and all of it for you. 

"I'm an idiot," you say, and your voice is shaky, but he laughs,
softly, even as he takes his hand from your breast and wraps his arms
around you.

"Not by me, you're not," he says, and he kisses your forehead. 

"Yes, I am," you say. "I shouldn't have done that to you."

"Hey, I liked it," he says, and he tips your face up to his with two
fingers, and this, you think, is the behind-closed-doors version of
the aviator smile. It's definitely worth seeing. "Or couldn't you
tell?" he asks.

You know what he's referring to. "Yes, I could tell," you say,
smiling, and you push up off him and stand up, straightening your
clothes. "It's quite obvious, as if you didn't know."

"Whereas I can only guess ..." he says, rolling over onto his side and
propping his head on his elbow, but the smile is still there.

"Couldn't you tell?" you say, but you're not really worried. 

"Well, you know how it is ..." he says. "The physiological signs
aren't quite as clear with women."

You look at him more closely then, at the long, golden-skinned body
stretched out on your couch, still gleaming with perspiration, that
impressive erection still there, and the idea, the thought -- the heat
-- is there again, and you decide quickly.

"Yes, they are," you say, softly. "You just have to know where to
look."

The smile fades then, and the intensity is back, the eyes you love so
much are fixed directly on you, and he is waiting to hear what you
want ... but he says nothing.

"You do know where to look ..." you say, "don't you, Harm?"

"Yes," he says, and his tongue darts out over his lips again. "Do you
want me to?"

"Yes," you say, and you hold out your hand to him; he takes it, and he
comes to you, back into the circle of your arms, where you want him,
where you are sure now you will always want him to be.

You wrap your arms around his neck, thinking as you do how lovely it
is to be so unafraid, to feel hot and wet and ready for anything and
safe, so safe, all at the same time.

And then you stop thinking as his hand slips under the waistband of
the sweatpants you're wearing, slips between your legs, gently parting
your labia with his middle finger, gently, so gently, sliding along
your hot, swollen flesh, and that, just that gentle touch, sends lust
as strong as a tidal wave racing through you, blinding you to
everything but him. 

Without meaning to you cry out and hide your face against his
shoulder.

He stills his movement. "Is that too much?" he whispers, but you shake
your head.

"No," you say, and your laugh is shaky. "It's not nearly enough."

"Do you want more?" he says, and the sweetness of that unhesitating
offer nearly makes you cry, because you know he's not asking anything
for himself just now, but again you shake your head.

"Later," you say, but his hand is still there, still touching you and
you can't help it, you move your hips back and forth slowly --once,
twice, three times, feeling how very, very wet you are, how silkily
your wetness makes you glide against his finger and how very, very
much you want him to make you come ... 

But later. Later, when it's you and him alone, and Mic isn't waiting
for you to finish breaking his heart, when there's nothing stopping
you and no reason you can't be together in every way there is.

You move back, just a little, and you reach down and take his hand,
take it away from you, and you take his hand to your lips for a kiss. 

"You need to go now," you say, and he is watching you so intently,
almost desperately, as you touch his still-wet fingers to your mouth.

"I do?" he says, not moving, watching your mouth.

"Uh-huh," you say, rising on tip-toe. "I have to get dressed. And you
have to go to the drugstore."

"Oh. Right," he says, just as your lips meet his, and you kiss him
slowly, letting him taste your wetness on your lips, and the sound
deep in his throat is the sound you will take with you when you meet
Mic, the sound that will keep you strong.

You kiss him again, and then again, until you know you must let him
go.

"If things get bad with Mic, don't stay," he says, and now he is
serious again, he is the officer you see every day, but that is, after
all, the man you fell in love with. "Just leave, go somewhere else and
call me, and I'll be right there."

"I will, but I don't think that'll happen," you say, and you smile at
him. "It'll be all right, everything will be fine. I'm not saying
it'll be easy, but it'll happen, it'll be over with and then we'll
come back here and we'll be together."

He laughs, but softly, and he lays a gentle hand on your face, his
thumb stroking your cheek slowly.

"So I guess I owe you a year's pay," he says, and the smile on his
lips is your smile, the one that is only for you.

"Maybe," you say, and you kiss him again. "But I think I'll take it
out in trade."

~~~~~

You were right about Mic.

It was not easy.

But at least now it is nearly finished. You've said nearly everything
you have to say and it has hurt both of you badly; it needs to end now
before you make a scene in a public place.

But he can't let go, and you can't tell him to let go because your
pain is his recompense and only he will know when he's had enough.

"Where did I go wrong, Sarah?" he asks, toying with his empty coffee
cup. "What could I have done differently?"

You shake your head, looking down at the table. "Nothing," you say.
"You didn't do anything wrong, Mic. You were never anything but kind
and good to me. "

The waitress comes by with the pot, and Mic takes a refill, but you
shake your head. No more coffee. No more talk. Let go, Mic. Let me go.

He doesn't answer you. Perhaps now he, too, realizes there's nothing
more to say and only one thing more to do.

You reach into your pocket. As gently as you can, you take his hand,
uncurl the clenched fingers, lay the ring carefully on his palm and
close his hand around it again.

"I will always be grateful to you, Mic," you say, softly, "I was
hurting so badly when I was in Australia and you did so much to
comfort me. I know that's not what you wanted, and I wish with all my
heart that I had realized earlier what was happening and not let it go
as far as it did. I know you can't forgive me yet, but for God's sake,
please don't hate me because I did love you ... I still do."

"Just not the way you love Rabb," he says, his voice thick with tears
he won't shed, and he's not looking at you. "That it, Sarah?"

"Yes, Mic, that's it," you say. "Not the way I love him."

You've said it at least a dozen times in the past hour, and he still
won't believe it. He still can't let go.

"There must have been something," he says. "I must have done something
for you to go running to him in the middle of the night."

"I didn't go running to him," you say.

"You didn't, eh?" he says, and for the first time since this
conversation began, he sounds truly bitter. "If you didn't, you gave a
bloody good imitation of it. So what do you call it, then?"

You're silent for a moment, swallowing hard, breathing slowly, trying
your best to finish this peacefully, without tears.

Finally, you speak.

"I didn't go running to him, Mic," you say, understanding it yourself
for the first time even as you say it. "I stopped running away from
him."

~~~~~

If there's one thing you've learned in your years in the Navy, it's
that you can get almost any situation under control once you
understand it fully.

The way to control this ball, for example, is to throw it so that it
hits the second step at a point two-thirds of the way to the back of
the tread. 

When you do that, it snaps up sharply, hits the riser and rebounds
right into your hand. Then you can throw it again, quickly, right at
the same spot, and keep up the rhythm. Don't want to lose that rhythm,
no, sir. 

Keeps those other rhythms out of your head.

Snap. Hit. Back. 

Great rhythm. You figured this one out, baby. You the man. The MAN.

Good ball, too. Good bounce. Used to call them superballs ...
compressed rubber, not just gobs of latex. Man, you lost a lot of
those down storm drains until you figured out how they bounced ...

Why isn't she here? You'd think she'd be here by now ... 

(Hey, hey ...)

Whoops. Dropped it. Grab it quick.

Pay attention, now. Gotta focus. Loss of situational awareness can be
deadly. You forgot that earlier today, didn't you ... anyway, it's
over. She knew she went too far ... she said so ... put it behind you.

Snap. Hit. Back. Back, damn it. 

Shit. Okay, you got it. Didn't go down the drain.

(Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?)

Stop it, Rabb. Throw the damn ball.

How the fuck does something like that get into your head, anyway? You
weren't even old enough to remember that stuff.

Okay, here we go.

Snap. Hit. Back. Whoa ... a little off, but you caught it.
Everything's under control.

If you aim just a little left ... maybe that'll keep it from bouncing
laterally ...

(Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids ...)

Stop it, goddamn it!

Snap. Hit. No, that wasn't it. Lower, maybe ... where those two cracks
intersect ...

(Hey, tell me something ...)

Oh, God ... no more. 

Please come back, Sarah ... please.

Please ...

"Harm?"

Thank God.

Two seconds. Just two seconds to get it together, that's all you need,
then you can look up and she won't see just what a high warble you
were in.

That's it. You've got it. Just keep breathing slowly.

You look up. She's been crying again but she's not thinking about that
right now. She's worried about you. 

So, okay, it shows. You can deal with that, though. Not a problem.
Piece of cake.

"Hey," you say, and you hold out your arm to her. She sits beside you,
under your arm, on these cold concrete steps, and it is cold; it's
gotten a lot colder while you sat here. Strange you hadn't noticed;
you spent so many years paying attention to the slightest change in
the weather.

But it's cold, all right, and the leather of your jacket creaks as you
pull her closer.

"How long have you been sitting here?" she says, nestling against you,
and she places a tiny, barely there kiss on your neck as she rests her
head on your shoulder, and this is good, you think. Take care of her.
That's better than ...

"Not long," you say, and it's a lie but not one that really matters.
You give her a little kiss on the forehead. "How did it go?" 

She shakes her head, but it's almost a shudder. "It could have been
worse," she says, and she snuggles closer to you. "I don't really want
to think about it right now. Why are you out here? I thought I gave
you a key."

(((I let myself in with my key. I thought you might want to do
something today. Looks like you do -- just not with me.)))

"Yeah, you did," you say. "I just ... found a ball on the street, so I
was sitting here, tossing it around. Gave me something to do."

"Something besides sitting around my apartment thinking about whatever
it is that's gone wrong since you left?" she says.

(((Because I'm your girlfriend, remember? Or I thought I was, until I
found Mac's underwear next to your bed.)))

"Now, what makes you think anything's gone wrong?" you say, looking
down at her and smiling.

"Don't patronize me, Harm," she says, and she sits up so that your arm
falls from her shoulders. 

(((Don't tell me nothing happened. I'm not the one who left short
brunette hair on that pillow.)))

"I wasn't patronizing you," you say, hoping you sound utterly puzzled.
"Why would you say that?" 

"Because you're giving me all that 'there, there' crap, and that's
what it's called when you do that," she says. "God damn it, Harm, I
know something's wrong. I don't need you to tell me that. I just need
to know what it is."

(((Oh, save the apologies for Saturday confession. If you weren't
happy with me, you could have told me.)))

You shrug. She'll find out anyway. "It's Renee," you say. "When I got
home, she was there, standing next to the bed, holding your clothes."

"Oh, my God," she says, wide-eyed, and her hand flies to her mouth.
"What happened? What did you tell her?"

"The truth -- that you had been there but that nothing had happened,"
you say. "She didn't exactly believe me. Then she asked me if I was in
love with you."

"And what did you say?" she whispers, but she knows the answer.

(((You cold-hearted bastard. You don't care about anyone but yourself,
do you?)))

"I said yes," you say. 

You feel a small, cold hand slip into yours, and you hold it tightly.

"It's mutual, you know," she says, still whispering.

"I know," you say.

(((So I was just fun and games, someone to fuck while you mooned over
her? Is that it?)))

"I'm sorry about Renee," she says, resting her head on your shoulder
again. "It was my fault. She didn't deserve to find out like that."

(((Do they teach this shit in the Navy, Harm? Do they teach a class at
Annapolis on how to recruit fuck buddies?)))

"Hey, you had some serious stuff on your mind," you say. "A fiance's a
bit more than just a boyfriend."

(((Oh, you think that makes it better, that you never made me any
promises? You were sleeping with me, you miserable son of a bitch. You
have been for a year.)))

"Well, he's not my fiance now," she says, and she holds her left hand
out -- her bare left hand -- and then she lays it carefully on your
knee. 

"Are you sure you're okay?" you ask, laying your other hand on hers.
"You look like you've been crying."

(((Get your hands off me. I don't need you to help me calm down.)))

"I'm ... yes, I'm okay," she says, and she smiles up at you. "It's
cold out here, Harm," she says. "Why don't we go inside?"

You shake your head.

"I think maybe ... I need a little time," you say. "Maybe tomorrow
would be better."

"Why?" she says, and she looks genuinely scared. You don't want to do
that to her, so you let go of her hand and put your arm around her
again.

(((How do you they teach you not to care what you do to people, Harm?
Oh, yeah -- I remember. I saw it on Discovery Channel. They make you
stick bayonets into mannequins and yell, 'Kill, kill, kill!')))

"I'm just a little tired right now, that's all," you say. "I think the
last 24 hours have taken more out of me than I knew. Maybe we could
get together for breakfast tomorrow and spend the day together."

(((Army, Marines, Navy ... What's the difference?)))

"Harm," she says, and she puts her hand on your face again. Her
fingers are like ice, but the touch is still soothing. "If you don't
feel like ... doing anything right now, that's okay. Come inside
anyway and get warm; I'll get take-out from that awful restaurant you
like and then you can get some rack time. Just stay with me. That's
all I want -- just you."

(((Fall in love with your uniform ... that's ridiculous. I did not
fall in love with your goddamn uniform. And don't give me that shit
again about how I don't understand military life. It's no different
from any other job, so don't fall in love with your own goddamn
uniform, okay, Harm?)))

"Even if I'm not very good company?" you say, but even as you say it,
you feel those warm brown eyes beginning to take you in and heal you;
you, just as you are, just as you were, and you begin to smile again.

"I'll try to live without the scintillating conversation, flyboy," she
says, and she smiles back and pats your hand. "As for the rest...
well, I want my lover, but I still need my best friend." 

"I'll always be that," you say, and her lips are warm when you kiss
her. "You can count on it." 

(((I should have known you'd screw around on me eventually. That's how
you macho types like to relax in the evening, isn't it? Get laid?
Especially after you go out and shoot somebody?)))

"I do," she says, and she takes your hand and kisses it. "You'll never
know how much."

(((Hey, tell me something, Commander Rabb ... )))

(((Hey, tell me something ... )))

(((Hey, hey ... )))

You stand up, shivering from the inside out. "You talked me into it,"
you say, and you help her to her feet. "Let's go in."

~~~~~

Confidences are gifts. He doesn't owe you pieces of his soul. 

You know that, but it still hurts that he's so closed off, especially
now. 

You were supposed to be in the bedroom making love, right now, right
this very minute; instead, you're lying on the couch together and he's
watching TV with a kind of mesmerized fascination that only a man who
doesn't own a TV could ever hope to achieve.

Still, he seems glad to be here with you, very glad, even grateful,
even if he doesn't want to make love or talk.

"What's the name of this show?" he asks you.

"Pop-up Videos," you say. "Funny, isn't it?"

"It's hysterical," he says. "Where do they come up with all these
factoids?"

"People send some of them in, but I strongly suspect some of them are,
shall we say, factually enhanced?" you say, moving around a little,
getting more comfortable against him, and he shifts his position a
bit. 

And it's all you can do just to lie still, to keep your word to him
that just being with him would be enough.

It is -- but being this close to him, especially horizontal, is also
having a hell of an effect on you, and he doesn't even seem to be
thinking about it. 

But he's rested now, and you've had lunch, so maybe you could get him
to think about it ... 

"Harm," you say, shifting a little more so that you're lying across
his chest.

"Mmmm?" he says, eyes still fixed on the screen.

"You still want to take that nap?" you say, sliding against him just
enough to make your point. "Because, you know, I'm a little sleepy
myself. Take-out vegetable ziti has that effect on me."

"Does it, now?" he says, and television seems suddenly to have lost
its appeal for him. You look in his eyes and you can almost see the
heat rising, you can almost hear his thoughts of what he could be
doing with you in that bedroom.

Good, you think, very good, and you're just about to reply when the
heated look cools and he turns his head away, just slightly. 

"No, that's okay, I'm all right," he says. "You go on. If I get
sleepy, I can sleep out here."

"No, actually, it's not okay with me," you say, as gently as you can,
but he still flinches. That's something to remember, you think.
There's a very sensitive nerve there somewhere, and you'll have to
find it before you can protect it.

"Look, Mac, I'm just not really in the mood ...," he begins, but you
lay your fingers carefully on his mouth and stop him.

"If I thought you really weren't in the mood, I'd leave you alone,"
you say. "I just don't think that's the problem. I think something
else happened with Renee that you still don't want to talk about. I'm
not saying you have to, either," you say quickly as he starts to
protest.

He takes your hand in his and he kisses your fingers before laying
your hand on his chest, and he's calmer already. "You're right," he
says, quietly. "Something else happened, and I don't want to talk
about it."

"I'm not trying to make you," you say. "I just want to know if I'm
keeping you from doing whatever it is you'd normally do when you're
trying to put something out of your mind."

He laughs at that. "Well, I'm not sure I'd put it that way, exactly,"
he says. "Maybe. Some things."

"Such as ... go flying?" you say. 

He shakes his head. "If I wanted to go flying, I promise, I'd take you
with me," he says. "And I would like to do that soon."

"Not in an F-14," you say, sternly. "Never again."

He laughs again. "Only in the Stearman," he says. "You're definitely
not cut out for supersonic flight, Mac."

"Yeah, well, you'd never make it through Marine training, squid, so
I'd say we're even," you say. Keep him talking, you think, just keep
him talking. "So do you want to go for another run, or go work out? I
still haven't had a workout today, you know."

"Those are both possibilities," he says, nodding slowly. 

"Well, I know you like to listen to music, or play your guitar, or
cook ...," you say, thinking aloud. "I'd have to go get your lobster
mitts, though. Oh, God ... when Bobbi opened the door and there you
were with those mitts on ..."

He shifts just a little beneath you, and as if that movement were the
catalyst, you understand what's happening here. Just how you
understand, you will never know; you only know that you do, and that
the mystery is unraveled, now and for all time ...

For eternity, you might say.

"So again, you're this way only with me?" you say, softly.

"What?" he says, and he's not faking it -- you've really confused him.

"Not doing what you usually do when you want to forget," you say, and
his slightly guilty expression tells you that he knows what you mean
now, and that you've guessed right. "You know, Harm," you say, "it's
getting harder and harder to feel flattered by your inattention."

"Mac, it's not like that," he says, but he's sitting up as he says it,
he's moving you off him and now you're just sitting side by side on
the couch the way you might have a week or a month or a year ago.

"Harm, please," you say, and you rest your arms on your knees. "I'm
not angry; I don't think I'm even really hurt, but if you start lying
to me, I will be."

"You think I'm not telling you the truth?" he says.

"You tell me," you say. "Because I think that one of the ways you like
to put things out of your mind -- most of the time, anyway -- is to
make love. Am I right?"

He looks away and doesn't answer, but it doesn't matter. Silence gives
consent, or so they say.

"So why not with me?" you say, as lightly as you can. "You think I
can't make you forget?"

"No," he says, so firmly that you cannot doubt him. "I don't think
that at all. But I don't want to use you like that and I don't want
our first time together to be about me and my wanting to forget what
happened when I broke up with Renee."

"Harm, I don't give a damn about that," you say. "I just want to be
close to you and make you happy -- and yes, I want you to make me feel
good, too. If you need something more out of it than that, I'm
perfectly okay with it. And anyway, aren't you the one who told me
that if I needed or wanted something from you in bed, I should ask?"

"That's different," he says. "This is asking for something for the
wrong reason."

"Oh, so now we've got to have approved reasons?" you say, lightly.
"Okay, let's see ... is fun an acceptable reason, or are love and lust
the only approved motivations? There's also curiosity, making up after
a fight, getting rid of tension ... "

"Mac," he says, but you're just getting started.

"Now, I like comfort sex, myself," you say, "but you said no amnesia
sex, and it's a subcategory of comfort sex ... let's don't even get
into procreation. You'll need your reasons approved in advance,
probably have to submit the request in triplicate ... we could call it
DD Form 69, unless that numeration is reserved for future use."

"Mac, come on," he says, a little irritably. "I'm serious. I don't
want to use you."

"You're not going to," you say, and now you are entirely serious. "You
couldn't if you wanted to. You're not a user, Harm, although I suspect
Renee may have said so. But that's not what's got you sliding into an
emotional black hole, is it?"

He doesn't answer; once again, silence gives consent, and whatever
sympathy you had for Renee earlier is gone now. 

Whatever the two of you have done to her -- and you will not make
excuses for it, God can judge where your heart has led you -- this
thing she has done to him in return, these ghosts she has awakened,
have more than canceled the debt as far as you're concerned.

What he thinks, he is keeping to himself. He has his reasons. This is
a man at your side, no boy, and he knows himself well. He does not
choose silence lightly. He, and his silence, deserve your respect.

But just as he did not abandon you to your ghosts, you will not
abandon him to his.

"It's all right, Harm," you say, and you stand up and take his hand.
"If you ever want to tell me, I'm here. In the meantime, I can think
of better things for both of us to focus on. Come on. Come with me."

"Come with you where?" he says, warily, but he's standing up. He knows
what you mean; he's just trying not to presume. 

"To bed," you say, and you put your arms around his neck and you kiss
him. "Don't make me wait any longer. Please."

"Mac, it's not that I want to make you wait," he says, and he takes
your face in his hands and kisses you softly. "I just don't want this
to be anything less than exactly what you want from me."

"Then for God's sake, come to bed with me now," you whisper. "Because
if you'll let me, baby," you say, very low, "I promise you, I'll not
only make you forget what's bothering you, I'll make you forget every
other woman you ever went to when you needed to forget. Want to see if
I can?"

"Well, yeah," he says, and for the first time in hours, he's really
smiling, not faking it -- it's not much of a smile, but it's real, and
anyway, the look in his eyes tells you everything you really want to
know. "I think that would be worth seeing." 

"Count on it," you whisper as you kiss him softly. 

You feel his hands slide into the back pockets of your jeans as he
pulls you close, and he's already getting hard again. This time, you
promise yourself as you pull him down to you for another kiss, this
time, that hard-on is not going to go to waste.

But there's no rush. He knows where you're going now and so do you,
and neither of you is in a hurry. You both know how much hotter this
fire can burn when it burns slowly, when it's tended carefully ... oh,
yes, a hot, slow burn in bed with Harmon Rabb sounds very good to you
right now.

So you move slowly, pleased with each movement of his lips on yours,
with their warmth and softness and with the firmness of his kiss, glad
to be old enough and patient enough to appreciate this for its own
sake and not just as a prelude to something else. 

At first, his tongue just barely touches your lips, then moves back
while he waits for you to respond, to invite him in ... and of course,
you do ... 

The only sounds in the room are the sounds that you make and he makes
when you touch each other, when one kiss ends and another begins, the
sounds of lovers together at last.

His hands move slowly over your back as he pulls you closer to him, as
he carefully tugs your T-shirt free of your jeans and runs his hands
at his own unhurried pace underneath, up and down your back, stopping
only for a moment to undo the clasp on your bra.

You like that, too; so well that you stop in mid-kiss. 

"You get extra points for that one," you say, leaning your forehead
against his chest.

"For unfastening your bra?" he says, and he seems mightily amused.

"For doing it so well," you say, and you look up into his eyes. "You
have no idea how hot that makes me," you say, and it does ... it tells
of sexual skill on his part and of sexual intimacy between you, much
as it will when you reach for his zipper, which you will do soon, very
soon, count on it ... 

I want you, this part of you, it says, and I know you want me there.

That thought sends the heat soaring sun-hot within you; all at once
you feel wild, fearless, stormy ... you hardly know this mood he's
created in you, so dizzy, so aroused, and so damn hot ... 

"This is going way too slowly," you hear yourself say, and your voice
sounds far away. What happened to slow and patient? the last remnant
of your logical thought asks, but it fades away at his gentle laugh.

"Well, we can't have that, can we?" he says, and you shake your head. 

"No," you say. "No, we can't," and then you do go for his zipper, for
the button at the fly of his jeans ... they're way too tight on him
now. 

You reach inside and touch him, that part of him that made Jordan
giggle and blush, the part that she knew, that you both knew, was hers
only until you decided you wanted it -- not just the flesh, but all it
means and all it symbolizes -- and you do, you want it now ...

And his ragged gasp, his whispered, "God, Sarah," as your hand closes
around him are, you think, the sweetest sounds you will ever hear. 

Sarah ... the name he whispers only when you're alone, because it's
not just any hand he wants touching him now, it's your hand, just as
this is not just any penis, it's the only one you want, it's his...
the last secret place on his body, and learning this secret is what
makes him yours.

He's hard, rock hard in your hand, and each exploring stroke you give
him makes him quiver a little more against your palm, a shiver that
seems to travel all the way to his arms as he holds you, to his mouth
as his kisses move, warm and wet, from your ear down your jawline to
the base of your throat, where he stays. 

You know him so well, so you hold him there, your other hand resting
gently on the short-clipped hair. You won't make him show you what
he's feeling until he's ready ... until then, he can hide his face
against your shoulder or ... oh, God... your breast ...

His mouth closes around your nipple; first a gentle taste, then a
rhythmic pull, stronger and stronger until you cry out, pleading with
him to do something to you, anything at all, because you think you
must be on fire already. The tugging sensation is going straight
through you, you are wetter than any woman has a right to be and your
jeans are suddenly too tight, too ...

You want his hand on your other breast, but your knees have buckled
and it's probably more important for him to hold you up right now, you
think ... of course it is ...

"Bed," you say, between gasps, the idea having just struck you. "We
can lie down."

"Good idea," he says, letting go of your nipple, and you look down in
wonder at the sight of your own nipple, wet, rosy and erect from his
mouth ... 

And yet it's still Harm standing here before you, still the man you
know so well and trust so much, and there's nothing and no one here to
be afraid of. There's nothing here for either of you but joy, and you
smile.

"Just tell me you didn't forget to make that trip to the drugstore,
flyboy," you say, linking your arms around his neck again, and he
laughs, and kisses you.

"Do I look like a man with a death wish?" he says. "They're in my
overnight bag, which is in your bedroom, colonel, in case you hadn't
noticed."

"Then what the hell are we waiting for?" you say, but your voice is
trembling now. Not another minute, you think, and you take his hand
and lead him into your bedroom.

The sun is on the other side of the building now, and it's growing
dark but still warm in the bedroom. You sit on the edge of the bed and
take off the rest of your clothes, watching as he does the same, as he
opens the overnight bag and gets what he needs -- what you both need -
-as he tears open the packet and lays it on the bedside table, ready
for use...

Ready for you.

"Only one?" you say, as you fold your jeans and lay them on a chair. 

"Hey, I am not 18," he says, smiling, as he sits on the bed next to
you, and it's still there, your hard-won ease with each other ... as
arousing as his nakedness is to you, as much as your own nakedness in
his presence stirs you, you're at peace with each other, untroubled by
new-lover worries, by fears of what-will-he-think and how-do-I-look.

No, there's nothing here but him, and you, and love and the desire
that grows from it, hot and burning and honest as a morning sun.

"Good thing, too," you say, softly, laying one hand on his face. It's
beginning to feel a little rough this late in the day, and you like
that ... it's such an unmistakably masculine feeling. "If you were,
we'd never have made it this far," you say, stroking his cheek. "It
would have ended out there in the living room."

"Even if it had, we've got all night and all day tomorrow, Sarah," he
says, and he kisses you gently. "There's time for whatever you want."

"I want you," you say, "and I want you right now, right this minute.
Can I have that?"

"Yes," he says, very low, and he kisses you again, more deeply this
time, his arms pulling you close, so close, so that your naked skin
presses against his for the first time. With one hand on your upper
back, he lays you down on the bed slowly, carefully, and he follows,
lying full length on top of you and his mouth is on yours again.

This, you know, is what you've waited and longed for, this moment as
much as anything that will happen today. This the kiss you've wanted
from him since you first knew you loved him, since you first knew that
it hurt him to see you with someone else ...

But you are his now, body and soul ... instinct takes over, and you
lift your knees to make room for him, to let him in.

"Just a second," he whispers, and rolls off you, and picks up the
condom, but you take it from his hand.

"Let me," you say, and his eyes dart up to yours quickly. So this
isn't usual for him, you think, and you smile as you roll it down over
him. Good. Let it be something special between you.

"Is that comfortable?" you ask, and he nods, his eyes still on yours,
and you smile and open your arms to him.

"Come here," you say, and as easily as that he is back in your arms.
With one trembling hand you guide him in, and you are so wet, so very
wet, that neither his size nor the condom poses any problem at all and
you take him in easily, painlessly; with one firm push, he is inside
you, stretching you further than any man before him ever has, burning
hot inside you, and nothing and no one can ever take this away from
you, not ever.

"Oh, you are mine now," you whisper in his ear, and you don't even
realize what you've said until you look up and see the surprise in his
eyes. 

"Thank God," he says, in a shaky voice, but he's smiling, he's really
smiling, and this, you think, is the behind-closed-doors version of
the only-for-Sarah smile ... and having seen it, you are lost, lost in
his eyes, in his smile, in wonder that he can need you so openly ... 

"You've been hiding so well," you say softly, tracing the outline of
his lips with one finger.

"Well, I'll make you a deal," he says, and although his weight is
resting on his arms, he still manages to brush the damp hair off your
forehead. "From now on, instead of hiding from you, I'll hide with
you. Okay?"

There is no way to answer that except to whisper his name, to pull him
down for a kiss, to cradle his body in yours as he begins to move
within you -- slowly, then faster, harder, and you hold onto him, wrap
your legs around him and arch your back against each thrust, meeting
him halfway because this is how the two of you are, this is how you do
things -- together.

You know him so well ... even now, you move with him as easily and as
confidently as though you'd been lovers for years, and you smile at
him even as you hold him close, even as your hands are trying out the
feel of every part of him you can reach. You cradle his body in yours
and you tell yourself you can help heal him, you can banish those
ghosts, both of you ... if you can just be with him like this there's
nothing you can't do.

Except make it last forever. 

You feel the tension build and build and build inside you until you
can go no higher and you cry out, convulsing against him and around
him in waves of pleasure beyond anything you have ever known.

You're so far outside yourself afterward that it takes a minute to
realize how close he is, too; his face is hidden against your shoulder
again, and his movements inside you have become erratic but hard, God,
he's thrusting into you so hard ... 

And because you know he is nearly there and because there is only one
more pleasure you want from this -- the pleasure of pushing him right
over the edge -- you lean over and take his earlobe in your mouth,
suckling on it gently for a moment before you whisper in his ear,
"Don't you dare hold anything back from me ..."

With one last, hard thrust, he throws his head back and he is there,
spilling into you, yours completely in this moment and never more
beautiful to you than now ... 

Slowly, his muscles begin to relax under your hands, his arms lose
their strength and his body settles against yours ... his breathing is
still rapid and shuddering, but it is slowing, and his skin is hot and
damp ...

Whatever was hurting him, whatever was driving him to silence, is gone
for now. It's not a permanent solution -- it's only a place of rest,
but it's yours to give and you will give it freely.

And as you hold him, you promise him silently that you will spend the
rest of your life doing whatever you can to bring him to this point
when he wants you, when he needs you, when you want him or need him...
you will be, if God allows it, his in the flesh as you have always
been in your heart, as you are now, as you will be forever.

~~~~~

You don't remember awakening, but you are awake.

It comes to you slowly, the realization that your eyes are open, that
the bed in which you're lying is softer than usual, the sheets
smoother, the pillows thicker and that you are not alone ...

Night is almost over, the world outside is quiet, you are here, and
all you could ever ask of life is captured in this perfect simplicity:
You, and the dawn, and the beautiful lady who became your lover last
night.

And you can't remember ever having awakened to this kind of peace
before, this simple, uncomplicated happiness. 

No ... morning used to be the worst time of all, when the stars were
still out and the sky was only beginning to grow light, when it seemed
that the night would never really end.

You used to lie in the pre-dawn dark, dreading each new day of on-
shore life, beating your head bloody against the brick-wall
impossibility of ever finding a way back to the only life you'd ever
wanted.

And it was a long path, longer than you could ever have imagined ...
you lost your way so many times, so many dreams ended ... you learned
what the hard-case sailors were telling you with their callous jokes
and casual infidelities: Don't love anyone or anything too much,
because then you'll have something in your life that you can't afford
to lose.

You fought so hard, but you couldn't bring back the dead and there
were always more you loved and lost, gone forever along with the life
you kept trying to find ...

You thought you'd found it once. You walked the flight line side by
side with laughing youths, scarcely more than boys, who dared anything
because they knew they'd live forever ... you walked among them, you
flew among them but you couldn't be them, not ever again, because you
knew the face of death, you knew it walked with all of you and at
night you lay down alone and dreamed of Sarah.

To hear that you were too old was only confirmation of what you
already knew: You were too mortal.

You had something to lose.

You tried to find a way back home, but you wandered, God, how you
wandered, trying to keep the curse on your life from following your
tracks back to her, from finding her and taking her, too ...

You think maybe you stopped wandering last night, but that thought is
too huge for the hour before dawn, and you remind yourself to look at
her, only at her ...

She's lying beside you, breathing softly, dreaming in the dawnlight
that streams pale and thin from the window behind you, dreaming until
morning, peaceful in sleep, dreaming of you, of you lying here awake
and watching over Sarah, and you think your heart will break with
wonder that she could ever have wanted you here at all ...

And yet she did. She took you in, loved you and wanted you with all
your imperfections and stupidities wrapped around you like a murky
cloud too dark to be dispelled by anything so small as a pair of gold
wings.

But she said that was all right, and she took your hand and led you to
this bed, and she made you hers. She wouldn't let you drive her away.

She just doesn't know the truth about you yet, your accusing
conscience says, but that little bastard's playing a desperation game.
Until yesterday, he was telling you that she could never love you
because she knows you too well.

Find a story and stick to it, buddy, it works better that way, you
tell that part of your mind, and then you kick it the hell out of your
thoughts, close the door on it and forget it.

She does know you. That's what's always been so damn frightening about
her and what you've always depended on so much.

And you know her. 

It should be strange to see her lying here, still as naked as when you
made love to her last night, but everything about her is just as it
always was, so familiar, so soft and warm and strong, stronger than
even she knows, and God help the man who ever underestimates that
strength.

And God help you, because you underestimated what she would bear for
you, what she would endure to make you hers and yet, in the end,
surrendering to your fate was as easy as falling asleep in her arms.

You touch one fingertip to her sleep-warm skin and she shifts
slightly, tucking her hands a little further under her pillow. She's
so beautiful and so alive and God damn it, why can't you just open
your mouth and tell her these things when she's awake? 

You want so badly to touch her again, even though you know that would
be greedy. She needs to sleep. You should get up, shower, get dressed,
and then in a little while she'll be awake. Half an hour, you think;
maybe a little less, but no longer, and then the sun will be up and
she doesn't sleep past daybreak. You've spent enough time with her to
know that. 

You sit up and swing your legs over the side of the bed, meaning to
get up, but you stop, drawn as always by the changing sky that signals
the coming sunrise. You look at the faint pink streamers of cloud
across the eastern sky, not yet gold, and you remember waiting
desperately for the same sight on a carrier in the Persian Gulf a
decade ago ...

Without meaning to, you shudder, and you curse yourself under your
breath for having let those thoughts back into your head now, of all
times. Those are thoughts for the dead of night when you're alone, not
for soft dawns with your lover ... your defenses ought to be stronger.
You can't think about it. It doesn't do any good.

You're so lost in thought you don't notice the bed shifting beneath
you; you don't notice anything until you feel her soft, warm flesh
press against your back, feel her arms around your shoulders and her
kiss on your cheek, and you sigh and relax into her arms, at peace
again ...

"You know," she says, reflectively, and she rests her chin on your
shoulder, "there were a lot of things I imagined when I thought about
waking up in bed with you, but you shaking your head and saying 'fuck'
wasn't one of them."

You have to laugh. "Sorry," you say, and you turn to give her a real
kiss. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"Oh, I'm glad you woke me," she says. "But I'd rather it had been
something a bit more romantic and a bit less worrisome." She kisses
you again and moves around to sit next to you, snuggling up under your
arm; that seems to be her new favorite place to be, and God knows
you're all in favor of it. "So I guess forgetfulness only lasts for so
long," she says, pulling the comforter around you both. 

For just a moment you think you'll try to charm her out of this
conversation, but you know what you did when you let her into your
heart and you know why. You've been alone in there too long ...

You nod and you hold her a little closer. "Something like that," you
say. 

"You feel any more like talking about it than you did last night?" she
asks, looking up at you.

You shrug. Damned if you know. 

"All right," she says, in a tone that says she finds your answer
perfectly reasonable, "let me hazard a guess, then. You took one hell
of a blindside hit from Renee yesterday, and I don't think it really
had much to do with the events of the day."

You look down at her then and you can't help it; you smile.

"Oh, you're good, counselor," you say, and you kiss her forehead.
"Just how did you arrive at that conclusion?"

"I know you," she says, simply, "and I know you're capable of
understanding just what you and I did -- and didn't -- do wrong. We've
hurt some people, Harm, but we haven't sinned badly enough to justify
this kind of reaction. That means it's something else."

You don't have to tell her. You know that. She respected your decision
yesterday and she'll respect it again today if you ask her to, you
know that, but what scares the hell out of you is that you want to
tell her because in so many ways, but especially now, in the way that
matters most, Mac is like no other woman you've ever known. 

Mac was there. She knows. 

"Remember when you were in Bosnia, Mac?" you say, looking out the
window. Just a hint of gold there now ...

She nods, but she shivers a little, too. "I try to forget it," she
says.

"I know you do," you say, and you look at her again, into her eyes,
you're always safe when you look there. "You see things in a combat
zone, you hear things ... sometimes you have to do things ... you
don't want to remember them."

"No, you don't," she says, very softly. "I still have nightmares about
it, though."

"Yeah," you say. "That's one thing you can never control." And you
fall silent, and you wait. 

When she speaks, her voice is quiet and level. "What did she say to
you, Harm?" she asks, shifting just a little under your arm as if to
imprint on your mind all over again the feeling of her skin on yours,
and it comforts you.

"She was angry, Mac," you say. "She was sorry as soon as she said it."

"I'm sure," she says, a little dryly. "As we say in court, though, you
can't unring a bell. So what did she say?"

You take a deep breath and let it out slowly. "She said that I was a
cold-hearted bastard -- and I was in no position to dispute that at
the moment -- but then she got off on a tangent about some show she
saw on the Discovery Channel, about some kind of military training,
Force Recon from the sound of it ... anyway, she asked me ... " 

You have to pause there for a minute ... this is getting to the hard
part, but Mac is patient with you, she's not pushing you to go faster
than you're ready to go, and that helps. You wait another minute, and
you start over. 

"Anyway," you say, "she asked me if screwing around was how 'you macho
types' liked to relax after shooting someone. She was really wound up,
Mac. The whole thing shook her up pretty badly. She wasn't thinking." 

"Oh, Jesus," Mac says, and she sounds positively ill, and you nod.

"Yeah," you say. "She said, 'Hey, tell me something, Commander Rabb --
how many people have you killed in your life?' Mac, she started
apologizing as soon as the words were out of her mouth."

"A little late," she says, curtly. She's furious, and you think it's a
damn good thing Renee's not here, or she might get a first-hand look
at just what Marines really are trained to do. "I can't believe she
said that to you," she says.

You know why she's so angry, too. It's not just an incredibly hurtful
question; among people who've seen combat, even less intrusive
questions are understood to be just plain rude, in a way that no one
else could ever understand. 

Company clerks, they say, do their three-year hitch and spend the rest
of their lives talking about their military experience; combat
veterans spend the rest of their lives trying to forget, and never ask
each other what that Purple Heart or that Navy Cross was awarded for.
Those stories are volunteered or they go with their owners to the
grave. 

"I wasn't expecting it from her, but she's not the first person to ask
me that," you say. "They always seem to think I'll be absolutely
stunned by the question, as though I'd never even thought about it
before. I think about it a lot, actually. More than I should."

"I know you do," she says, and her voice is softer as she nestles
closer to you. 

"Mac, I've never said this to anyone before, but the truth is, I don't
know the answer," you say, looking out the window again. "I couldn't
begin to tell you. I know how many confirmed air-to-air combat kills
I've got; I know how many times I've looked someone in the face and
shot them dead. But I've run a few bombing raids over Iraq and Libya
and I have absolutely no idea how many people died in those raids...
hundreds, probably ... I just don't know."

"Harm, stop it," she says, sharply. "You did what you had to do."

"I know that, Mac," you say, and you look at her again. "The people
who ask me that question don't seem to know it, though. They seem to
think I'm Jeffrey Dahmer. They want me to look guilty, like I've just
realized I'm a mass murderer. Some of them just have this anti-
military thing going on, and they ask me how many gallons of gas those
people's lives bought."

"After which they get in their cars and drive away," she says, and
she's still angry, but there's a weary resignation in her voice. She's
heard all this, too, over and over.

"I know," you say. "And I also know that's not what the Gulf War was
all about. There's no sense arguing with them, though."

"But you've dealt with all that before, Harm," she says. "What was it
about yesterday that sent you into such a tailspin?"

You shake your head. "I was tired," you say. "A lot had happened. I
hated that I had hurt her so badly, although I don't regret for one
moment being with you now," you say quickly, holding her a little
closer to make sure she knows you mean it. "But it wasn't just that,
Mac, it was ... the way she looked when she said it."

"How did she look?" she asks, gently. She knows. Whatever the heart of
this hurt is, it's here.

You close your eyes. "Excited," you say, finally. "Like it really,
really turned her on."

~~~~~

For one staggering moment, you are sure that you are going to have to
run out of here and throw up ...

You look at your lover ... your friend ... and for just a moment, you
see him as you first saw him, standing outside the Rose Garden with
the Distinguished Flying Cross newly pinned to his dress whites, tall,
handsome and, yes, just a bit larger than life ...

You weren't there when the president pinned the medal on, but you've
read the citation; you know what it says. Extraordinary achievement...
courage under fire ... steadfast devotion to duty ... the highest
traditions of the United States Naval Service ...

The medal was for one flight -- one goddamn heroic flight, too, under
heavy fire -- but it wasn't just one flight, not really, it was the
culmination of hundreds of achievements, the sum of all the courage of
all the flights before it, the bombing runs, the air cover, the
patrols, the missile strikes ... even the crash.

For her to turn all that into some kind of cheap, voyeuristic thrill
is infuriating, almost beyond belief; and yet, in truth, it's not one
bit unbelievable ... it's really not hard for you to imagine that look
on her face, not hard at all ... when you imagine it, she looks much
as she did while she and her cameraman recorded the events on a
hijacked airliner headed for Korea. 

She wanted a documentary ... an exclusive documentary. She had to have
the camera to get it.

He wanted the truth about Kang So Ri. So did you. Both of you had to
put your lives on the line to get it.

But right up until the very end, you couldn't help thinking that it
was all just a game to her, a hunt for the perfect shot, the perfect
sound bite ... it took bloodshed and terror, a lot of it, to wipe that
eager, overly bright look from her eyes.

And when the end came, it was just you and him, together as always...
him at the controls of a jumbo jet almost four stories high, bigger
than anything he'd ever flown, and you at his side. 

You never really questioned why you were there ... you just were,
you're always with him and he knows you always will be ... and so you
were with him then while he maneuvered that plane and landed it as
though he'd been flying 747s all his life.

You loved him that day for what he did, for the skill and courage with
which he did it, but you didn't tell him that. Somehow, you knew that
he just wanted you to let it go, to take it for granted.

When you had time to think later, you almost hated her for her camera
and her questions, but you told yourself you had no reason to feel
that way. But now, in some truly dismal way, it's all too easy to
believe that you sensed something else there, something infinitely
worse ...

Oh, yes, you could so easily hate her now, and let that hatred spill
out of you; you could, but you don't need another ghost in your bed...
there have been too many of those already, far too many, and ghosts
feed on fear ... you can't hate her if you don't fear her, and you
won't ... you won't do that.

No ... no more ghosts, no goddamn way ... you'll starve this one out,
and fast, while it's still small and hardly powerful at all. She will
not lie between you and him. Never.

"I guess that would be kind of hard to take," you say finally. The
shaky feeling in your stomach is still there, you can still feel the
white-hot anger narrowing your eyes, but you're under control. "It's
hard for me to take, and I wasn't there."

"It was definitely a first," he says, trying to smile, but he doesn't
quite make it. Somehow, that hurts you more than if he hadn't smiled
at all, but refocus, you tell yourself. He wants you to look at the
smile, not at what's behind it. "I honestly didn't know what to make
of it," he says.

"I'm sure you didn't," you say, and you lean into his warmth again,
let his body soothe you. You won't be afraid when you're with him like
this ... you just won't. "I suppose I could try to tell you that I
think you misinterpreted her expression ... "

"Except that you don't think I did," he says, and something in his
voice makes you look up, into his eyes, the eyes that always
understand you. The hurt is still there, but there's more ... there's
compassion, and love, and a quiet apology. He knows you're afraid,
that you're hurting for him, and it hurts him to do that to you but he
needs you to stay with this, with him, just a little longer ... and
he's trying to comfort you, even as the hurt goes on.

With a smile and a soft kiss, you accept what he offers you, and you
lay your head on his shoulder.

"You probably didn't," you say, trailing your fingers through the hair
on his chest. It seems almost too self-indulgent, touching him this
way, but he doesn't seem to mind it ... quite the opposite, and it
calms and reassures you to be able to touch him so freely.

"At first, I thought it was just morbid curiosity," he says, and he
seems calmer, too. His arm is still strong around you but no longer
tense, just warm and embracing. "You know, the kind of thing that
makes people slow down and stare when there's a wreck on the Beltway.
But I don't think curiosity would have made me feel quite so ...
unclean, if that's the right word."

"That's one way of putting it," you say, gently. "I think maybe
violated would be another word that would fit."

He winces at the word, but then he looks down at you with a rueful
smile. "It fits a little better than I'd like, Mac," he says. "How the
hell did you come up with that?"

"Something from Bosnia," you say, and he goes still, so still ... it's
an offering of respect, and you bless him for it. "Of all the things I
saw over there, I think it's what haunts me most," you say. "The rape
of the Muslim women by the Serbs. It wasn't random, Harm, it was
planned. They used it as a weapon, a way to demoralize the Muslims." 

The memory makes you shudder; it's been the stuff of your nightmares
for years now, but even as the images intrude, you feel him holding
you a little closer, and it does help. 

"That must have been pretty bad," he says, softly. 

"It was awful," you say, emphasizing each word. "They said it got
better after the U.N. troops arrived, but it didn't stop, Harm, not
completely ... You know, some of the women would commit suicide
afterward, because they were afraid their families would kill them for
being unchaste."

"You handled some of the asylum requests, didn't you?" he says,
gently. He's heard you speak of this before.

You nod. "They asked me to, because I was a lawyer and because they
knew my grandparents were Muslims," you say. "They thought I could
establish some kind of bond with those women. What really happened, I
think, was that I identified with them too much ... "

"How do you mean?" he asks, in his quietest voice, the one you love
most. You could tell him anything when he speaks to you that way.

"I mean I couldn't separate myself emotionally from what was happening
to them," you say. "I couldn't keep going, so I asked to transfer
stateside. But, Harm, as bad as that was, what really made me sick was
how some people reacted back home if I talked about it. Talk about
morbid curiosity... it was like they were almost excited by how much
it upset me."

"That's disgusting," he says, sharply. "People like that are just
plain sick."

"Yes, they are," you say, and you lay your hand on his chest, feel his
heart beating. It's just a little too rapid ... he's really upset.
"But I think that, in a way, that's what it was with Renee. To her,
knowing that you've done that ... it's an extreme drama, something so
far outside her experience that it's almost sexually exciting. Morbid
curiosity to the N-th degree."

The silence between you is heavy, but you know not to hurry him. What
you've told him is exactly what he dreaded, what he was hoping he
wouldn't have to hear.

But it's all right. He'll answer when he's ready, and he'll tell the
truth. That's all it takes, the truth, and the ghost lies dying on the
floor, it never rises to chill the space between you in the night.
Tell the truth and shame the devil, your father used to say ...

Tell the truth and kill the ghost, you answer him as his voice fades
away. You can almost see him retreating down the corridors of your
mind. 

"Maybe," he says, and after the long silence you're startled to hear
him speak. He's not looking at you, though, he's looking down at the
floor. "But, Mac, that's the same thing that leads some women to write
fan letters to serial killers or even marry them while they're behind
bars. That's their extreme drama; getting involved with a killer. I
don't want that to be me. I can live with what I did in the line of
duty, even if it's not always easy, but I can't live with being
someone's pet killer."

"You're not," you say, gently, and you lay one hand on his face so
he'll look at you. "Just because she doesn't understand the difference
doesn't mean there isn't one. I don't think any of it is real to her
anyway, Harm. She doesn't understand military service at all. She
thinks you're Tom Cruise or Richard Gere, that it's all nice and clean
and nobody gets hurt too badly and you shoot down the MiGs and go
party on the flight deck."

"I know," he says. "I told her that." He laughs, a short, dry laugh.
"Big mistake," he says. "It just made her angrier. I never could make
her understand that it's not like that in real life. All that stuff is
straight out of Hollywood."

"So is Renee," you say, dryly. "She doesn't know the difference
between the movies and the real thing. She doesn't know how ugly
combat can really be, or that even very brave men can be frightened or
hesitate ... or even cry."

He's silent for a moment. "No," he says, very quietly. He remembers
that conversation. "She probably doesn't."

"But I think," you say, "I think maybe when she said that, and she saw
how it affected you, maybe she began to realize that she'd gone way
too far, that this wasn't a movie or a game, and that's why she
apologized so quickly. She's not an evil person, Harm; just a little
careless sometimes, and not very sophisticated."  

He doesn't answer you right away, but you can see in his eyes what's
happening; his gaze is becoming stronger as you watch, the uncertainty
and pain that were there earlier burning away like a morning fog,
replaced by the firm conviction you've come to know so well.

He's not over it, not completely, but he's had all the emotional
upheaval he can stand for now, and he's ready to put it behind him and
go on. When he reaches that point, the soul-searching is over, and he
simply stops. That's the way he is, and you know it. You accepted that
long ago.

And he's there ... he's back in control again. 

You're glad to see it ... you are, because you've been trying since
yesterday to bring that look back. Still, you know it means this
glimpse into his heart is over, too, and it may not come back again. 

It doesn't matter. He's trusted you, he's spoken to you of matters
that you are morally certain he's never spoken of to anyone else, and
he's learned that it's safe to tell you.

That's a lot for one weekend ... it's almost enough for one lifetime.

"I think you're right," he says, and it's the old, self-assured Harmon
Rabb, all right. "In fact, I'm certain of it. I'm also certain," he
says, and he kisses your cheek, slowly, lingering for a moment, "that
I don't want to think about Renee anymore. I'd much rather think about
you."

"Yes?" you say. "And what exactly would you like to think about me?"
you say, and you smile ... and you don't have to try to make this
smile happen, not at all, because the full, 1,000 megawatt Rabb smile
is beaming right at you and you're only flesh and blood ... you're
smiling right back, you couldn't help it if your life depended on it.

"Well, I was thinking," he says, as he pulls one corner of the
comforter around you ... it's a nurturing gesture, but the look in his
eyes is anything but parental ... "I was thinking that since I ruined
all your fantasies about waking up together, maybe we should go back
to bed and start over," he says, and that smile is going straight
through you now ... it's making your eyes wide and your nipples hard
and it's making you hot and wet, so damn hot, because he's planning
something for you, he is ...

"So you want to make one of my fantasies come true?" you say, and just
saying it sends a heat wave through you ... you can hear your own
desire in your voice, and in your breathing.

"Oh, I would love to make your fantasies come true," he says, his
voice dropping lower as he pulls you close for a kiss, for a whole
series of slow, exploring kisses, his hand moving over your breast
with gentle, practiced ease as his arm holds you closer ... "Tell me
what you want, Sarah," he says, dropping a kiss beside your ear. "Can
you?"

"I don't know," you whisper, nearly breathless. "I want to ..."

"What keeps you from being able to?" he asks, and he's looking at you
now ... there's no judgment in his eyes, only concern ... he just
wants to understand.

"Maybe ... the words, partly," you say, and that sounds a little silly
even to you, so you smile. "I mean, there's almost never anything in
between the truly vulgar and the utterly clinical ... except for 'make
love,' and that refers only to one act ... you know?"

"Ah," he says, and he smiles, too, and gently brushes the hair from
your face. "So let me think ... what might Sarah MacKenzie want from
me that can only be described either in vulgar or in clinical terms?
If I figure it out, do I get to do it?"

"Harm," you say, and you can feel the blood rushing to your face ...
but it's rushing somewhere else, too. He knows what you want ... and
"do I get to do it?" definitely sounds like a man who enjoys it, but
God, is it ever ridiculous for a woman of your age and experience to
be shy about telling her lover she wants oral sex.

It seems he's not going to tease you about it, though. He's still
smiling, but it's a loving smile, a friendly smile, without a trace of
mockery. "Never mind," he says, and he kisses you softly. "I think I
know. We can work out the terminology later."

He's so gentle with you, as gentle as you always knew he could be...
he lays you down on the bed carefully, makes you comfortable, kisses
you tenderly before making his unhurried way down your body, carefully
moving your legs apart and making love to you with his mouth ...

And it has never been like this for you before, never. He knows what
he's doing, oh, God, yes, he does, each movement of his lips and his
tongue is driving you completely insane with pleasure, but that's
purely physical, incredible as it is ... no, the moment that makes you
think you may die for sheer joy, makes you want to cry for pure
happiness, happens just as you are arching up off the bed, in the
throes of an orgasm so strong you are sure it will leave you
unconscious ...

And you realize that he is holding your hand.

There's little time to think, little time to put thought into words...
there's only a dim, grateful knowledge that he knows, as no other man
has ever seemed to know, how this act, pleasurable as it is, can send
you off into the outermost reaches of pleasure and at the same time
leave you feeling so utterly alone.

He knows ... and he is holding your hand, and you are not alone, not
at all alone.

That's your last clear thought, as one final tug of his mouth sends
you crashing over the edge, and your body convulses hard, your hips
thrust upward against him, desperate not to lose contact with this
sweet, almost-too-much pleasure, this feeling that there is nothing in
the universe but you, and him, and his mouth and what he is doing to
you with it ... as you slowly relax and come back to earth, back to
him, back to his hand holding yours.

He feels the end arriving almost as soon as you do, and he lets go and
lays his head on your leg, lies there quietly saying nothing, just
letting you come back to yourself and to him.

You still haven't caught your breath, but you need him here, you need
his arms around you ... his name is a bare whisper, but he hears you,
and he lifts his head and comes into your trembling arms and lies with
his head on your breast in the perfect silence ... so perfect, so new,
as new as the dawn just breaking, that you wonder to hear yourself
speak.

"Harm?" you whisper, your hands running gently through his hair.

"Yeah?" he says, lifing his head to look at you.

"I love you," you say, and then you stop, shocked. He's given no
indication at all that he's ready to deal with a declaration like
that, and you aren't even sure you are, for that matter. "I'm sorry,"
you say, practically stammering. "That just came out."

"Don't tell me you're going to take it back," he says, and he's
smiling, but there's just the slightest tension around his eyes, as
though he thinks you really might ...

There's nothing poetic about what he said; it's as near to artless as
human speech gets. But it's from the heart, from his heart, and it
goes straight into yours, and you smile ...

"No," you say, and you bend toward him and kiss him softly. "I'll
never take it back."

"That's a relief," he says, and he kisses you and lays his head back
down. A moment later, you hear it ... it's quiet, so quiet that you
have to strain to make out the words, but it's all the sweeter because
you know he doesn't say it easily ... "I love you, too, Sarah," he
says. "I always have."

For a moment you just lie there, holding him, letting those words
linger in the air ... but the newness of this makes you nervous, and
you laugh, a silly little laugh. "Come on, sailor," you say, "isn't it
your turn now?"

"I'll get my turn later, in the shower," he says, not moving. "Go back
to sleep, Mac. We've got all day."

"But the sun's coming up," you protest. 

"I know," he says. "And the only thing I want to do with this sunrise
is spend it in bed with you."

You start to protest again -- snap to, sailor, reveille's sounded --
but he turns his head a little upward toward you, and you see ... 

He hasn't closed his heart off to you. He won't, not ever again.

He may not speak of it again, he may smile and laugh and act as though
nothing troubles him, but when he is here, alone with you like this,
his eyes will always let you into his heart ...

You kiss him again, and it is the sweetest kiss of morning any woman
ever had from any man, you are sure of it ...

"I think you're right," you say, almost in a whisper. "I think you and
a beautiful sunrise together is as much excitement as any woman should
try to handle in one morning."

He smiles, and lays his head down, and together, you sleep.

When you awaken again, it's almost noon ...


~~~~~


"There's really no point in even worrying about it, Mac," he says. "At
best, we might keep it a secret until lunch, but I wouldn't bet the
rent money on it."

"Harm, we're both professionals," you say, swirling a Beltway Burger
french fry through a puddle of catsup, pretending you don't notice the
way he shudders and averts his eyes when you do that. "I'm not
suggesting we pretend forever ... I just want a day or two to catch my
breath."

"You know I would give it to you if I could," he says. He, of course,
wouldn't touch a Beltway Burger with a HazMat suit and a grappling
hook. He's got linguini with marinara sauce from the Italian place
down the street, which, of course, meant he had to make two stops
instead of one.

Take-out dining is always going to be a problem, you think, ruefully.
There does not seem to be a middle ground for the two of you.

Problems already. 

"Well, you could at least try ...," you say, but there's no conviction
in your voice. He's right, and you know it. If you report for duty at
0730, someone's going to notice that your ring's missing by 0735. By
0736, the word's going to be spreading all around JAG: Colonel
MacKenzie's broken her engagement. There really isn't any way to avoid
that.

What you'd like to avoid is having everyone figure out why.

And that, he's telling you, is impossible.

"It's not that I'm planning to engage in PDAs in the courtroom, you
know," he says. "I'm not in the mood for a reprimand from you or from
the admiral. But at some point we're going to look at each other or
avoid looking at each other in a way that people are going to notice,
and they're going to put two and two together. We work in an office
full of investigators, Mac. They're going to figure it out."

Well, that's true, you think ... you're looking at him now, and it's
all you can do not to climb across the table and drag him to the
floor, and you've already made love twice today: once at sunrise and
again just a little over an hour ago when you woke up to feel his arms
around you, his lips nuzzling softly against your neck and his
erection pressing firmly into your back. 

You rolled onto your back and he came into your arms like every dream
of him you'd ever had, naked and hard and smiling down at you, the
look in his eyes nothing but love and desire and all of it for you,
only for you.

"I thought you wanted to do this in the shower," you said, shivering
with delight as his wonderfully talented fingers found your nipples
again.  

"I can't wait that long," he said, and his kiss was firm and eager but
he was more patient than he pretended to be ... it was slow this time,
slow and easy, with plenty of time to touch and explore, to laugh and
talk, time to savor every inch of him, to wonder how it can feel so
right to have him inside you, at how he makes you feel so full and so
truly joined to him ... you talked and you laughed together until you
couldn't talk anymore and he watched in something like awe as you
writhed and moaned and climaxed beneath him.

"God, I love to watch you come," he whispered when you opened your
eyes again and lay trembling in his arms.

You cradled his face in your hands then and pulled him down to you for
a kiss. "My turn to watch you, now," you whispered, your breath still
heavy and uneven, and you wrapped your legs around him to pull him
further into you, to start the age-old rhythm again. 

"Oh, that's my baby," you whispered, as he laid his head down on the
pillow beside yours, and only later did you wonder where the words
came from, only later did you understand why and how badly he needed
to hear them. "That's my sweet baby ... I love you, Harm, I love you
so much ..."

Hot, he felt so hot in your arms, moving inside you so hard, as if all
his strength was a gift meant only for you, to drink in, to feast
upon... all you could do was wrap yourself around him and hold on,
whispering encouragement in his ear and thanking God for this
knowledge of him, this passion fused with understanding.

You knew then what it meant for him to trust you this way, to let go
so completely that when his climax hit him and he cried out, it was
too much for him and he hid his face in the hollow of your shoulder,
but that was all right. You didn't need to see his eyes to know that
this time, he'd taken you all the way into his soul.

No woman, you are sure, has ever seen that far into him, into his most
private heart before ... his utter abandon was a promise, a seal in
the flesh of a promise that between you and him, alone in bed, there
will be no pretending and no hiding away but only the safety and the
solitude in which your hearts can open to each other ...

But that was in bed, between lovers in private, and this is at the
kitchen table over Beltway Burgers and tomato sauce, and life's more
prosaic concerns are making you feel very damn glum.

"So they're going to figure it out," you say, tossing the french fry
back into the catsup where it lies in a sullen, greasy pile with all
the others you no longer have appetite for. "So what do we do? Just
walk in, call 'attention on deck' and tell all and sundry that we're a
couple now?"

"I thought maybe we'd just walk in and go to work," he says, mildly.
"Whatever they figure out, they figure out. Mac, we outrank almost
everyone in that office. They may wonder, but they won't ask. Whatever
they're thinking, they're disciplined enough to keep to themselves,
and that includes Chegwidden."

"And what if you're wrong?" you say.

"If I'm wrong, and someone forgets the rules, you can handle it," he
says, and he's turning on the charm now. You know that smile and that
gleam in his eye so well. "Come on, Mac, you've never had any trouble
enforcing discipline in the ranks. I know a few sailors on the USS
Watertown who're still afraid you're going to shoot them out a torpedo
tube and feed their butts to the crabs."

You really, really want to be immune to his charm right now, but as
usual, you're not ... only when you're angry at him can you resist him
completely, and you're not angry, you're just worried, so you smile,
and you shake your head at him. "How do you manage to be so untroubled
by all this?" you say, looking up at him again.

"Maybe because I feel that being known as your significant other can
only enhance my reputation," he says, still with that devastating
smile. "Whereas you seem to have doubts ... legitimate, I'm sure."

"No, it's not that," you say, and you lay your hand on his. He's
kidding, but maybe not ... not entirely. "I just ... I wonder what
people are going to think ... about me, I mean. I left work Friday
wearing Mic's ring and I walk in Monday ..."

"Wearing a big smile," he says, and you laugh. 

"Probably," you say, and you lean across the table and kiss him. "I
know you've given me plenty of reason to smile," you say, more softly.
"You're a wonderful lover, Harm."

"Oh, come on, Mac," he says, looking away from you, and although you
can tell he's pleased, he's more than a little embarrassed, too.

"Why, Harmon Rabb," you say, hands on hips in mock amazement. "I never
had you figured for the bashful type. Surely I'm not the first woman
who ever told you that?"

"Now, colonel, surely you're not suggesting I should kiss and tell,"
he says, shaking his head in mock admonition. "You know better than
that. Anyway," he says, more seriously, "it's definitely the first
time you've said it to me. It's an adjustment, hearing something like
that from someone who's been a friend and co-worker for five years."

"Yes, I guess it is," you say, and then you smile. "Not that I'd know,
you know ... I mean, it's not as if anyone who's been my friend for
five years has actually told me ..."

"Well, I guess I thought I'd gotten the point across non-verbally," he
says, with a soft smile.

"You did," you say, and you kiss him, a long, slow kiss. "And I'm
glad. Really glad. I wanted so much to please you ... I think I'd have
had to request a permanent change of station to Ouagadougou, Upper
Volta or something if you'd been disappointed."

"That would have been impossible by definition," he says, "and anyway,
it's Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso now," and he kisses you again, and you
smile, overcome once more by that strange but somehow lovely shyness
that keeps taking you by surprise as you learn to be his lover. 

"You know, one thing did surprise me," you say lightly, trying to
conceal your jumbled emotions. "I kept expecting that obnoxious,
stuck-on-himself aviator to come out and start giving me the 'hey, you
like that, baby? You like that?' routine."

"I think I'll just ignore the insult and tell you that I learned my
lesson on that a long time ago," he says, "and in a most unforgettable
fashion, I might add."

"All right, you can't leave it there," you say, when he doesn't
continue. "What happened?"

He looks at you for a long moment, then he lets out a deep sigh.
"Okay," he says. "But remember, it was a long time ago and I was young
and greener than hell and I had developed, shall we say, a bit too
much self-confidence?"

"At least some things never change," you say, folding your arms across
your chest.

"If I may continue, please?" he says, with a lifted eyebrow, "I was
making some such obnoxiously self-serving comment to a young lady at a
particularly intimate moment, and she responded by saying, 'No,
actually, I don't like it at all ... how about you go out and get
another one that works better?'"

"Oh, no," you say, and you cover your mouth, half in horror and half
in the dead certainty that you're going to giggle. "That must have
been ... um, fairly disturbing."

"It was devastating," he says, flatly, but he's smiling, a wry smile
that says he knows exactly how you're reacting to this. "Let's just
say it brought the proceedings to an abrupt and permanent halt."

"Oh, Harm," you say, truly sympathetic, but that last statement is too
much for you, and the giggles break through. "I'm sorry," you say. "I
know it must have been horrible for you, but it's just ... I'm really
sorry, Harm."

"Nah, it's all right," he says, and he's still smiling. "I think it's
funny now myself. I just didn't think so then. At the time, I was
seriously thinking about taking a vow of eternal celibacy."

"Thank God you didn't," you say, your laughter subsiding, and you
reach across the table and take his hand. "I take it, then, that the
lady in question wasn't Diane."

"No, she wasn't," he says, in that very soft voice he always uses in
speaking of her. "She was a girl I met at Pensacola.  It had been a
while then since I'd seen Diane. We'd agreed we would see other
people... you know."

"Yes, I know, and I'm sorry," you say, more quietly. "I shouldn't have
said that. I know better. It would have had to have been a long time
after you two were together, or a long time before."

"Actually," he says, and you can see how hard he's trying to be matter
of fact, "there wasn't anyone before Diane."

It takes just a minute for the meaning of that to sink in, but when it
does, it hurts ... for him, and for her, and for all the innocence
that was ever lost ... yours included.

"She was your first?" you say, gently, and he nods.

"I was hers, too," he says. "I mean, you know, we were only 18 when we
got to Annapolis."

"I thought that kind of thing was against Academy regulations," you
say, trying to steer the conversation away from the deadliest wounds
of this pain that he will carry for the rest of his life.

"Well, you know how it is," he says, with that faint almost-smile.
"Where there's a will ... and where there are horny adolescents,
there's definitely a will."

"Or young people in love," you say, softly.

He's silent for a moment, looking down at your linked hands, and you
feel his fingers lacing through yours a little more tightly. "Yeah,"
he says, finally. "That, too." Then he looks up at you. "Mac, my
wanting to be with you now has nothing to do with the fact that you
look like Diane," he says. "The resemblance begins and ends with the
physical similarity."

"I know," you say, and you take his hand to your lips and kiss his
fingers lightly. "But I would love to know what it was like to be her,
for you to be my first lover."

"Hold it," he says. "Are you saying you think it bothers me that
you've had a life before today? Because if you are, forget it."

"No," you say, shaking your head. "I know better than that. I do wish
I'd had a normal, ordinary life before today, because you know my life
has been anything but ordinary. Ordinary women don't have things like
adultery and alcoholism in their past."

"Ordinary men don't have the responsibility for the death of their
best friend in their past, either," he says, quietly. "Neither of us
is coming into this relationship unscarred by the past, Mac."

For a moment you don't answer; you wait, collecting your thoughts.

"I'll admit, I've had some emotional traumas over ... you know, my
past," you say. "When I was a little girl, my father told me over and
over not to let any man touch me until I was married. That way, he
said, sex would always be something special, something that was for
only one man. And I wanted that ... I really did."

"But something kept that from happening," he says, and you nod. 

"Something did," you say. "I think it almost always does to girls who
drink too much. And my father found out, and he ... wasn't happy about
it. But I got over it. After all, it's hardly unusual for a woman not
to be a virgin these days..."

"I wouldn't think so," he says. 

"But when I said I wanted to know what it was like for Diane, I didn't
mean because she was a virgin," you say. "I just meant that I wish I
knew what it was like for her, for her first time to be with someone
who loved her, someone who treated her kindly ... that's all."

~~~~~

It took you less than four minutes from first engagement to splash one
Libyan pilot. That's a matter of record.

What is not a matter of record, but is no less a certainty to you, is
that your recollection of the events of that battle takes about an
hour to unfold.

The same thing is happening to you now.

In some far corner of your mind, there is a dispassionate, reasoning
voice that says you do not know this man, whoever he is; you don't
know what he looks like or his name or how old he was or anything
about him.

That, the voice tells you, is why you can't make the image clear in
your mind; all you can see is yourself wreaking some formless violence
on this faceless bastard for having done that to her, for having used
her carelessly and left her with this lifelong hurt.

And she wishes she could have been Diane ... Diane, who touched you so
long ago with shy smiles and eager, nervous hands ... every stolen
moment with her was sweet and innocent and you loved her so ... you
held her hand, and she looked into your eyes and her lips trembled and
you knew she wanted you to kiss her, so you kissed her and she pressed
herself against you until you finally got the message that she wanted
to be touched ...

It was more than a year of sneaking away to secret places, of touching
and kissing and even learning to bring each other to climax with hands
and lips before she asked you to take that final step. She was
terrified of discovery and dismissal from the Academy, but she said
she wanted you too much to wait any longer.

Even today the touch of dew-soaked grass at midnight, the sounds of
night-waking birds and insects, the far-off hum of the streetlamps,
can bring that night back to you ... 

You hear her voice whispering your name so softly and you see
yourself, half out of your mind with terror and with wanting her,
fumbling awkwardly with the condom, praying you wouldn't make a
complete fool of yourself, absolutely desperate to be joined with her,
so much that you didn't notice what was happening until she was
actually crying ... 

(((Diane, did I hurt you? Oh, God, I hurt you ...)))

(((No ... it's ... I'm just not used to it ... please don't stop,
Harm... you're not there yet ...)))

(((No ... I can't ... I don't want to hurt you ...)))

(((It's going to hurt the first time ... if it's not you it'll be
someone else ... I don't want it to be someone else ... if I have to
be hurt I want it to be you because I know you won't hurt me more than
you have to ... please don't stop ... just hold me and I'll be all
right, it's not that bad, really ...)))

It was bad, though; bad enough to take your overheated adolescent
brain away from your own anxieties and put it back on her, and that,
finally, was good. 

You laid her on her side, taking your weight off her ... you moved
more slowly, let her set the pace, let her tell you when she was ready
for you to move forward ... you kissed her and told her how much you
loved her, and that was no lie, because you loved her more than life
itself ... and you watched her as the fear and pain left her eyes and
the joy and the love she had for you came back.

Hold onto me, you whispered, and she answered you, I am, Harm, I am,
and it wasn't perfect, but it was sweet, and good, and loving ... it
was what the first time is supposed to be.

There was a loveliness in that innocence and a quiet beauty in that
time that can never be recaptured, and you mourn for it as you mourn
for Diane, but there is a stronger sweetness and a greater strength in
love without innocence, in love that walks in the door crying in pain
and accepts that there have been hurts and wrongs and other lovers ...
and you are humbled by that love, as you are humbled by the woman who
brings it to you, a woman stronger and braver and more beautiful than
any other woman you have ever known.

There should have been a sweet and innocent time for her, and it tears
at your heart that you cannot give it back to her.

But you know the truth of her life, and the truth is that the hurts
didn't begin there, in the back seat of a car or wherever it was ...
her innocence wasn't taken along with her virginity, no matter how
callously or harshly it happened.

No, all that began long before, with a mother who abandoned her first
emotionally and then in reality, with a father who tried to make it up
to her but in the end had nothing to give her but the same tools he
used to build his own desert places, the same alcohol and anger and
self-loathing with which he'd shaped and created his own dry hell for
years.

It began the first time a little girl named Sarah began to doubt she
was worth loving, and it continued ...

Oh, Jesus ...

You know where it continued. It continued as she spent five years
loving a man who wouldn't unbend far enough to love her back.

You never let yourself see it, because you closed your heart off so
long ago, while you were trying to make yourself accept your new life,
and Kate was there ... she was there when a desperate night trap,
against all hope, got your wings back for you. You were an aviator
again even if you weren't flying and that was something, all right,
that was very damn good, and Kate seemed to like it, well enough to
come to your bed, anyway ...

But one weekend was all she would give you, and she would never tell
you why it was that and nothing more. Kate left, and she never even
seemed to look back, and in the process taught you a hard lesson about
mixing your personal and professional lives. 

Meg came, and Meg was a good friend, and although you wondered whether
she wanted to be more, you didn't let it happen. You'd learned. You
learned, and when Meg left, you never even seemed to look back ... and
somehow, you closed your heart. 

But if you weren't exactly happy, you were at least content, and night
wasn't so bad, as long as you weren't on a carrier at sea.

Until Diane's letter came ... and hope was born and died when Diane
died, and you never wanted to give fate another chance at you.

And then Sarah MacKenzie came ... she came, and she found your heart
closed tight against her because she had Diane's face, because she had
Kate's job, because she had Meg's vulnerability ... you kept that door
closed tight, and if you began to care for her, you told her and
yourself that it was nothing more than friendship, you filled your bed
with other women and you never even called her by her name ... 

But Mac was always there. You were alone sometimes but she never
really left you, not for long. She stuck around, because she could
deal with the situation. 

She was used to not being loved back.

The faceless bastard suddenly has a face.

~~~~~

No wonder he closed himself off to you for so long.

It's quite simple, really: It's all or nothing with him. Either you
see everything, see all the way into his heart and soul, or you see
nothing, but once he has let you in, he has no way to keep you out.

And you think maybe he knows that, too. 

It's another piece of the puzzle, another answer to why he stammered
and skittered away from you that night in Sydney.

No man likes to be so visible, to be stripped so completely of his
hiding places, and this isn't just any man. To do what he does, he
can't show fear, hesitation, confusion or guilt, not in the courtroom
or the cockpit. He has to keep the surface perfect.

But you can see all of those in his eyes now, although you don't know
why. You know it's because of you and because of what you just told
him, but none of that is his fault. It was long ago, before you ever
knew him, and he has never treated you that way; nor, you are sure,
has he ever treated any other woman so coldly and impersonally as your
first ... lover is the wrong word, and you don't care to spend the
mental energy to come up with another one just now. You'd rather think
about Harm.

Yes, he's a puzzle ... one of those puzzles whose solution lies in
knowing how you're supposed to look at it. After that, you always see
it and wonder that you didn't see it before.

He can't hide anything from you. Not now. 

He knew it would happen, and he conquered his fear and came into your
arms anyway. He gave you the love you asked for and in doing so, gave
you this tremendous power over him, power to heal and to understand,
power to hurt and to destroy.

It only makes you love him more.

From your heart, you promise that you will watch over him and guard
this door he has opened to you. No one will see his confusion through
your eyes or learn from you that he is afraid. Not even in anger will
you use your access to this most private, most vulnerable side of him
to hurt him.

Never.

He doesn't need protecting now, though, he needs reassurance. Why, you
can't imagine; you only know that he does.

"Hey," you say, and you lay your hand on his again. "Don't look so
sad. None of that had anything to do with you. Forget I mentioned it."

He shakes his head. "It's not that," he says. "I'm sorry as hell that
it wasn't like that for you, because it should have been. If I had any
way to go back and change it, I would, but I'm not a kid, Mac... I
don't blame myself for things that happened ... however many years ago
it was."

"Quite a few," you say, softly. "Long enough that ... well, let's just
say I was far too young to know what I was doing ... or is that too
much information?"

"Not if you need to share it, it's not," he says, quietly.

"I don't know if I do or not," you say, and that statement feels about
as honest as anything you've ever said. It's surprising, in fact, how
good it feels to be so open, not to pretend a confidence you don't
feel. 

It seems ... backwards.

But not with Harm. You don't have to filter out the grime and leave
only the fairy tale. The trust between you was always strong, but it's
grown so much stronger while you were lying in his arms. 

You can speak to him from your heart, and it is with his heart that he
will hear and from his heart that he will answer.

"Maybe I do need to share that," you say, slowly, still thinking. "You
know so much about the bad decisions I've made in my life, after all.
Maybe I need to know that you know what was behind some of them...
that you know it wasn't just that I didn't care or that I was
amoral..."

"I have never thought that of you and I never will," he says firmly,
interrupting you. "And you don't owe me any explanations. Whatever bad
decisions you've made, Mac, you've paid for them a thousand times
over."

"So have you," you say, simply, and he smiles, but just barely, and he
doesn't say anything for a long time. It's all right now, though.
You're more comfortable waiting for him to answer you than you would
have been even a few hours ago, so you just wait.

"Is that what you thought, Mac?" he says at last. "That I didn't want
this to happen between us because I knew too much about you, that I
disapproved of you in some way?"

The temptation to give him the correct answer -- no, you never thought
that, how could he even imagine that you did? -- is a strong one, and
you nearly give in. This is a serious time, though, a time when the
two of you open your hearts to each other and build whatever future
you're going to have, so you think for a moment before you answer. You
know he'll give you time to think, the same time you gave him.

"Not always," you say finally. "Not exactly, anyway. I never thought I
was good enough for you, Harm, but I never thought that you thought
so, if that makes any sense. I mean, I may have wondered sometimes
what you thought, but you always showed me how you felt ... or,
anyway, you never left me in doubt for very long." 

He's smiling a little, the indulgent smile of a man who's accustomed
to -- but still can't quite follow -- the evolution of the female
thinking-out-loud sentence structure, but there's something else in
that smile, too, something that says he's caught himself in a mistake
he knew better than to make.

You weren't expecting that.

"What?" you say.

"You did know how I felt, didn't you?" he says, still with that
slightly guilty smile. The way he says it, it's not a question.

"Of course I did," you say, in mild surprise. "How can you even ask me
that?"

He shakes his head, as though he's surprised himself. "Because
somehow, I had just managed to persuade myself that you didn't," he
says. "In fact, to be perfectly honest, I was just thinking what a
rotten bastard I was for having held back from you for so long."

"Oh, you were holding something back, all right, but it wasn't love,"
you say, with a wry smile. "I always knew how you felt, Harm. I could
tell by the way you looked at me or spoke to me, how close you stood
to me ... or held me in your arms."

"That didn't happen very often," he says, but the smile is softer now.
He's remembering -- and so are you.

"No, but when it did ...," you say, and you stop, and sigh. The
newborn physical side of your relationship is getting to be very damn
distracting.

For five years his friendship, his trust and those all-too-rare
embraces held you up, kept you going through some of the worst times
you could imagine, and now a whole weekend of shamelessly indulging
yourself in his body, in his love and his passion isn't enough. You'll
never have enough of him again, and you know it.

"When it did, I never wanted you to let me go," you say, opening your
eyes, and despite everything that's happened this weekend, it still
feels like a huge admission.

"I didn't let you go because I wanted to," he says, reaching for your
hand. "I did it because I believed it was the right thing to do."

"I know," you say, and you do, but there was so much sadness during
those years, so much longing ... when you think of all that, holding
his hand isn't enough, and you go into his arms as simply and as
directly as one magnet moving toward another. 

It happens just that naturally, because this is where you belong now,
and he puts his arms around you and kisses you gently as you lay your
head on his shoulder.

That simplicity is a gift, greater and more terrifying than anyone has
ever given you before, the best thing in a five-year friendship full
of good things, now changed like the night sky is changed by
lightning, lit with this fire that's taken hold of you.

Just to look at him now, just to hear him speak is to remember how it
is with him, to feel the heat of his arms, of skin against skin, the
heat of him deep inside you, of you open, unguarded, out of control,
and he makes you feel safe, he keeps you warm.

He won't turn away, no matter how ugly the truth might be. 

And it was ugly, that night so long ago when, drunk and lonely and too
young to know better, you traded your self-respect for a meaningless
"I love you" in the back seat of a car. It hurt so much, and you
allowed it, you suffered the pain, risked your health and your future
for that lie because the lie was all you had, the rest was nothing but
silence ... 

The boy drove you home, dropped you off in the driveway, and you came
in the front door stumbling and crying, only to be greeted by your
drunken father and named with your new name, the name the ghost still
struggles to whisper in your ear, the name you cannot yet forget
completely.

You don't stumble now, you skip and run and dream, like that little
Sarah of the pink lace, Princess Sarah of long ago who dreamed of
beauty and dreamed of a handsome prince, who dreamed, really, only of
being loved.

And you are loved, and how you are loved is all summed up in this one
fact, that Harm wishes that it could have been different for you, that
he could have made it sweet for you, and loving, the way it is now
with him.

Gratitude and something like wonder race through you like wildfire,
making your face flush hot. You feel lighter by about a thousand
pounds, lighter by the weight of a burden you didn't even know you
were carrying, it had become so much a part of you. 

"You really think I deserved better," you say in a whisper, and you
blush even harder as you realize how stupid that sounds.

"Better than to be treated unkindly and not loved?" he says, and he
kisses your forehead. "Of course I do. You shouldn't even have to ask
me that."

You'd like to answer him, but you still can't quite take in the
safety, the love and the acceptance you've found in his arms; it wants
to run off you, unabsorbed like rainfall after a ten-year drought. It
will have to rain a long time before the dry ground can bear life
again, and you will have to be loved a long time before you can feel
worthy, so you lie with your head on his chest, you listen to his
heartbeat, you rise as he breathes but you don't fall because his arms
won't let you fall.

Tomorrow will take care of tomorrow. For now, you will sit with him in
the Sabbath stillness and let this rain fall upon you ...

~~~~~

Sunday night, and you are lying next to him again, in his bed again,
just as you did on a night full of stars, rain and tears, the night
you finally became his.

Sunday was a beautiful day, clear and bright, the wind just a little
too strong to be called a breeze, with a cool edge to it that made you
feel alive, wild and free and strong enough to laugh as you ran
through the park with him at your side. There was no race today, no
competition -- you ran with him, step by step, your paces as perfectly
timed as if you were double-timing it in formation.

You ran and you ran and you laughed and stole glances at him, loving
the way his arms moved, his legs, the way his whole being seemed
thrown into this workout, and yet, you knew his mind and heart were
full, warmed to a glow, overflowing, and only with you.

When you were done, and you flopped down on the cool grass with him,
gasping for air, gulping water from the same bottle, you lay there
beside him and looked up at the benevolent sky and you knew that the
pattern for the rest of your life had been set.

He would have to be there. There simply was no other option for you. 

But how to tell him that? How do you ask for forever when either of
you could be gone tomorrow, carrying with you only what will fit in a
seabag, clutching newly printed orders in your hand that direct you to
wherever the trouble is today?

He could be gone forever in an instant, and you know it. 

But you want this forever, this life of sweet evenings and bright
mornings, of heated bodies, cool water and dry grass to lie on ... if
only you knew how to tell him.

"Hey," he says, half-rolling toward you. "You gonna lie here all day?"

"I might," you say, turning your head so you can see him, lying on his
side, his head propped on his arm. "I just might. Why, you got
somewhere you have to be?"

"Nowhere at all," he says, and reaches out with one finger to trace a
line down your nose to your lips, where he stops and gently strokes
for a second before moving on down to your chin. It almost tickles,
and it makes you smile, but the smile comes from the joy of how easy
he finds it now to touch you, how easy you find it to let him.

My beloved is mine, and I am his, you think, and you are startled to
realize just how right that sounds to you.

"What's on your mind, Sarah?" he says, somberly, and you know he's
seen your unspoken truth in your eyes.

"I was just thinking about things," you say, turning your gaze skyward
again. "Nothing much. Just ... things."

"You're a lousy liar, Mac," he says, amiably, and rolls onto his back
again. 

"Thank you so much for your confidence," you say, but you're smiling,
and he knows you didn't take it as an insult.

"I thought it was a compliment," he says, mildly. "You know -- I'm
more or less implying that you're inexperienced at prevarication."

"Would that I were," you say, glumly. "I can tell a lie with the best
of them ... when I have to, that is."

"Are you sure you want to say things like that to me when this
relationship is still so new and fragile?" he says, lightly; he's
still not taking you seriously, and why should he? The trust between
the two of you is stronger than anything, stronger even than love or
desire, stronger than the sun overhead or the solid ground beneath
you.

"New and fragile, my ass," you say, softly, and you roll over so that
you're half lying on top of him, and you kiss his mouth softly, once,
then twice, and a third time before you draw back to look into his
eyes. They're a little unfocused, but there's a message there that you
already know how to read.

"Again?" you tease, and his smile widens.

"I can't get enough of you, Marine," he says, and although he's still
smiling, there's just a little catch in his throat ... he means it,
and for so much more than the wonders you've created between you in
bed.

"It's mutual," you whisper, and press your mouth to his again.

It's quiet in this part of the park, quiet and deserted except for the
two of you, and you move slowly together, touching gently,
simultaneously loving and teasing, because no matter how deserted this
park may seem, no matter what you're wearing, you are who you are and
you cannot make love here. 

But you can touch ... a little ... and you can enjoy the delicious,
fiery lust that comes just from knowing that this desire he's
awakening in you will not be fulfilled ... not now, anyway. Later. At
home, yours or his, behind closed doors ... in bed ... naked ...

His hand slips under your shirt, closing over your breast, his thumb
brushing your nipple, and you remember that kiss ... only two days,
and it already seems like a lifetime ago ... that fiery sweet kiss
that told you both the truth, that the time was now, and there could
be no more hiding or denying.

"Harm ..." you murmur, pressing your face against his neck, feeling
his pulse beating strongly there, each perfect throb sending the hot
blood racing through him, and through you ... you breathe deeply the
scent of his too-hot flesh, and all he smells like to you is a man,
your man, Harmon Rabb ... known and unknown for so long, and now,
yours.

"God, Sarah, don't ever leave me," he whispers into your ear, and then
jumps back from you as if he'd been burned.

"What is it?" you ask him, stunned by this sudden shift.

"I ... I shouldn't have said that," he says, and you can see in his
eyes that he's startled himself at least as much as he startled you.

"Why shouldn't you?" you say, still puzzled. "Didn't you mean it?"

"Yes, I meant it," he says, more quietly, and his eyes are calmer. "I
just don't have any right to ask it."

"You're not making any sense at all, Harmon," you say, shaking your
head. "You have a perfect right to ask. Of course, I have a perfect
right to say no."

He nods, somberly, and the light in his eyes dims a little; just
enough, you think, to tell you that there is no room here for teasing.

"I'm not saying no, Harm," you say, and you wiggle closer to him again
and kiss him. "I don't ever want to leave you. I just don't know how
to make that happen."

"I know," he says, but he already looks less worried. "I've thought
about it, too. There's no way to make any promises, is there?"

You think about that for a minute before you answer. Your whole life,
you think, has been edged around and banded with steel bands of you-
may-not and you-shall-not and you have always accepted it. Maybe
that's part of what let you make it as a Marine officer: You've always
had orders to take, and you took them.

But this, now, this incredible newness of life as Harm's lover ...
doesn't that give you the right to plant your feet and say, no more?

"There's a way," you say, and your voice sounds faraway in your own
ears. That distance is there, you know, because you're frightening
yourself, and you didn't know that would happen.

"There is?" he says, gently. He's seen the fear, and he's responding
to it. God bless this man, you think, and you smile and put a hand on
his still-hot face.

"There is," you say, and kiss him again, wishing for a moment that
you'd kept count of the kisses this weekend. Somehow, it seems good to
you to know which one this would be: Number 2004? Number 3025? You
don't know; you're sure it's in the thousands, though.

"Tell me," he murmurs, capturing your lips again briefly.

"There's no procedure to it," you say, nibbling at his lips for a
second. "I just ... promise, that's all. I promise I'll never leave
you."

"Mac, you can't promise me that," he says, his voice still gentling
you like a mother's sighs and warm breath gentle her infant. "You're a
Marine and I'm a Naval officer, and either of us could be sent
somewhere else in a heartbeat."

"I know that," you say. "I know that, someday, something will come up
that looks insurmountable. But I won't let it be. I'll work it out
with you, Harm, no matter what it takes. The final answer, whatever it
is, won't be that we break up and go our separate ways. That's what
I'm promising you."

He is silent for a minute.

"I'll take that," he says, in a judicious voice. "And I'll make you
the same promise: Whatever we have to do, we'll stay together. Deal?"

"Deal," you say, and then you decide you've held back long enough,
thank you very much, and you roll back onto him and swoop down on his
mouth like a greedy predator, drawing him into a kiss that has only
one logical conclusion.

His eyes are unfocused when you pull away from him, and he cannot seem
to speak, but the way his hardening flesh is pressing into yours tells
you all you need to know.

"Home," you say. "Now."

"Home," he says, his words sounding more like an echo than an
agreement, but then he smiles and you know he's there with you, all of
him, mind, body, heart and soul.

"Home," he says again, and you both smile.

~~~~~

You went to your place, and you gathered up your clothes -- noting,
sensibly enough, you thought, that he's got to take you back to his
place because your car is there -- and then you leave.

A short drive later, and you're back in the bed where the whole thing
began, making love with him the way you always dreamed of, feeling the
hard length of his body alongside yours, the harder length of him
inside you, and you cradle him and coo and call out his name, feeling
the now-familiar burn growing tighter inside you, and you come so hard
that you can barely hear when it's over.

He rolls off you, gasping for breath, and you pull the condom off him
and dispose of it, and then you curl up in his arms, resting your head
on his chest.

"That was worth driving across town for," you say, and you smile a
secret smile against his muscled frame.

"Oh, yeah," he says, his eyes still closed. "Definitely worth it."

It's all too perfect, too unbelievably perfect, and yet there's always
something left unsaid, undone, undecided. 

This time, there's no dodging it. 

"Harm?" you say.

"Yeah?" he answers, sleepily.

"What are we going to do about tomorrow?" you say.

He opens his eyes then and turns his head to look at you.

"What do you mean, what are we going to do?" he says. "We're going to
report for duty, I think -- unless you know something you haven't told
me."

"No," you say, as though you were impatient with him, but you're not.
Someday -- probably very soon -- you will grow impatient and angry
with him again, but that's part of your lives together and always has
been.

Right now, you couldn't care less how obtuse he wants to be.

"What, then?" he says.

"Do we go in to work together, or do we arrive separately and try to
pretend that nothing has happened," you say. "You've got to answer me,
Harm -- it's getting late, and unless you're sending me home, I'm
planning to spend the night here."

"There is no way in hell I would send you home," he says,
emphatically. "I don't want to spend another night without you if I
can help it."

"Well ... we'll see how it goes," you say. "Past a certain point, it
becomes cohabitation, and the admiral frowns on that."

"I know," he says, but there's a twinkle in his eye. "But I figured to
wait at least until our second date before I propose."

"Oh, you," you say, and you nudge him with your elbow. "Be serious."

"Who says I'm not?" he says.

"I do," you say. "Now, seriously, Harm -- what are we going to do?"

"Seriously?" he says. "Seriously, I'm going to get up in the morning,
get dressed and report for duty, and anyone in this apartment who
needs a ride to the same place I'm going has got one. How does that
suit you?"

"It suits me just fine," you say, softly, and you press yourself
closer to him.

And then you sleep ... 

Just before morning, you awaken. You slip from the bed quietly and you
walk to the window and look out at the stars, at those few stars that
have managed to shine brighter than the glow from the city lights.

"Star light, star bright," you whisper to yourself, but you don't
finish the poem. You don't need to.

You turn back from the window, back to the room where your love lies
sleeping, and you know: 

You have no need to speak to the stars.

Now, and forever, his heart has spoken to yours -- and there are no
more wishes left to wish.

You, and your heart, are home.

END