Chapter 35

Sunday morning, still cloudy and warm; with a better chance of rain today. It had been very late when we went to bed, actually very early in the morning. I was up before the others, so I went downstairs; the potatoes were ready for whatever I decided to do with them. I made a big pitcher of frozen juice, then decided to make cinnamon rolls the quick way; I was halfway through that when Ellen showed up in her pajamas, quickly followed by Carol. They were a little surprised by my baking and cooking breakfast, obviously they didn’t know all about me; Marsha and Alice showed up as the rolls came out of the oven. Wearing bras at night doesn’t seem to be a thing, we chatted a bit and I kept my eyes on my work as I put icing on the rolls. The four ladies loved them, the aroma had made its way upstairs, and the other three soon joined us. I started cooking a package of bacon, then started taking breakfast orders; again surprise that I was comfortable and competent doing it. That led to my explaining about being a short-order cook before joining the Marines; then the conversation from last night resumed.

How men and women are different; how to maybe find a ‘good guy’, whatever that was; we ended up talking about just about everything. Yes, I got a lot of questions about my experiences with my ladies; I didn’t get too graphic, but Karen kept giggling at ‘the good parts’, generating more questions. What a guy wanted from a woman got a lot of discussion; I gave it my best shot, telling them that maybe I wasn’t the best guy to ask. I did stress that it was a question for when they were dating; if they came across a guy that they were attracted to, how to approach that subject. We covered a lot of ground that morning; the rain really settled in and then came a discussion on what to do for the rest of the afternoon. The evening was going to be very similar to the previous one, depending on the rain; someone got the Sunday paper out and we decided on an afternoon movie.

I was a little surprised when ‘The Longest Yard’ was chosen, the new Burt Reynolds movie. The ladies managed to get dressed in an hour, JB and I in 10 minutes; that led to a bit of a discussion on what men wanted, timewise, and what women were willing to give them; JB and I graciously conceded the point. Maybe that’s not quite true, but we did get out of the house by 1:30, and made the 2 pm showing. It took a little bit of talking to get the ladies to let JB and I buy tickets for us all; they insisted on buying the popcorn, candy, and drinks. Two hours later we had something else to talk about when we got home. First the movie, everyone enjoyed it; then dating protocols, that took a while. By now everybody was comfortable with everyone else; dating expectations got explored pretty thoroughly. Just snacks for everybody right now, everyone still full of popcorn and junk food; at 6 the ladies started to get ready to hit the town again. This time JB and I were prepared, we lazed around on the couch watching sports until the ladies said they were ready; then quickly got ourselves dressed, and headed out again.

Tonight ended up similar to the previous night, with a couple of important differences. The first one was running into Becky and her boyfriend Andy at the club; they were still together and had found out about us performing at the club. She was up from Pensacola for the long weekend; I got a quick kiss on the cheek and hug from her, and a firm handshake from Andy; they joined us for the rest of the night. There were a couple of Karen’s other girlfriends that joined us also; being a Sunday night the club wasn’t quite as full, but we now needed three tables. With the little bit of rain still falling, we stayed put until JB and I did our singing; by the time we left at 10 the rain had stopped. We tried a different dance club, that part ended up mostly the same; with Andy joining us, JB and I didn’t get shuffled around as much, dancing with everyone. I did get a chance to talk briefly with Becky; she told me she was happy and doing very well. I had a shorter conversation with Andy, he simply asked me for advice about how to make Becky happy. Treat her the best he could, and make her the focus of his life; since he was already trying to make her happy, you can’t go wrong with that; I told him.

A little after 11 Becky and Andy left, followed shortly by the other two girls, I never was able to remember their names; we’re back down to a party of 8. We tried one more different club; things were slowing down and now there was more room on the dance floor. I got in one slow dance with Karen, who swapped me for JB in the middle; I finished that dance with Angie, who giggled sweet nothings to me until the end. I announced to JB that Angie needed to be cut off at 4 drinks; she just laughed and said she really liked to tease and flirt with me. I thought we were done; until the band started playing another fairly slow song, and Ellen led me to the floor. Like I said before, she was an excellent dancer; pretty soon we were moving together quite well, me spinning and dipping her a couple times. The other girls had made a group restroom run; when they got back, they gave Ellen and I a round of applause. The band was wrapping up, so we did too; a little after midnight we were back at Karen’s place.

The girls were hungry, for more than just snacks; I made an assortment of grilled cheese sandwiches. Lots of cheese choices; the ladies cut them up into four corners, and we pigged out. The rain had stopped, so we tried the pool again; no suites this time, just towels wrapped around our waists getting there. Not much playing around either, and we moved to the spa pretty quickly; most of the discussion tonight was how well the two nights had gone, how comfortable we all were with each other. When the rain returned as a gentle drizzle, we stayed put for a while; but eventually we ended up inside. Everyone seemed to be more than a little tired; hugs and kisses for everyone, then we all headed for bed about 1:30. Even Karen was tired; we made gentle and slow love for 20 minutes before she fell asleep under me.

Monday morning, Labor Day; I thought it was raining before, today promised to be a complete washout. Ellen was the only one up early with me; me in my running shorts and t-shirt, her in her pajamas; we made fresh cinnamon rolls for everyone, then just lazed around waiting for the others. She seemed pretty quiet; I asked her if everything was alright.

“Yes,” she eventually answered, watching the rain. “This weekend has been so good, what weekends are supposed to be like.” I kept my silence, just saying I thought it had gone pretty well also; after a few more minutes she turned to me; “Did Karen tell you I had a bad experience, a couple years ago?” she asked.

“Just that you had, she didn’t think it was her place to give me the details.”

“It was my first couple of months in college, I was in Knoxville at the time...” She didn’t get into the graphic details, but she had gone to a party with a girlfriend, a guy had gotten her very drunk; then taken advantage of her in one of the empty bedrooms. Karen and the others started showing up, but she didn’t seem to be able to stop talking about it.

It got worse, much worse; the first guy left and returned with several of his friends, and they took turns with her almost completely unconscious body for a long time. Fortunately she didn’t remember much of it, she remembered trying to say ‘no’; but by the time her girlfriend had found her and gotten her out of the house, she figured she had been repeatedly raped by at least 7 or 8 guys. By then Karen and girls had surrounded her; they ended up in a group hug with a bunch of crying; JB and I just walked away and gave them all time to recover, us too.

No one was very hungry after that at first; after a bit we all ended up in the living room, talking about it. The police investigated but she couldn’t identify anyone, even the first guy had disappeared. It seemed they had all used lubricated rubbers; she wasn’t torn or injured physically; just very sore for several days afterwards. She had gone through counseling afterwards, and changed location and school, coming to Nashville; she had adjusted, but still wasn’t comfortable in places she didn’t know; or around most men.

JB and I didn’t say anything at first, what could we say? We were asked why a guy would do that; we didn’t have a clue. I did tell her it wasn’t her fault in any way, that hopefully she would eventually completely recover; it was Angie that asked me what I had told the girls in Virginia Beach. That meant that JB and I had to tell the story about the assholes there, and the 5-second fight. Angie and the other girls stressed that most guys wouldn’t do what had been done to her, and most would come to her rescue; JB and I agreed. We finally got the atmosphere to lighten up a little by detailing the ‘almost fight’, and the voices in my head telling me what to do. All the girls giggled a little when JB and I started arguing about who was going to go through the door first, if there was a next time. By then everyone was a little bit hungry; I made a traditional breakfast for everyone; then we all cleaned up and decided to play cards for a while.

Eight of us; we broke up into two sets of 4, and played a bunch of simple games for several hours; changing positions every once in a while, the conversations ever changing. It was a nice afternoon after all; the other girls left at 4, Ellen giving me a nice kiss and hug; thanking me for listening to her and showing her a good time; giving her better memories. JB and Angie left soon after; I told JB I’d be at the Brooks’s around noon the next day, so we could get back on the road to Cherry Point.

Karen and I spent a couple hours cleaning up and doing laundry; by the time we were done, the place was spotless again. Of course, we messed up her bedroom again, a couple times that day; she seemed determined to completely drain me, and wear herself out, too. It got to the point that I couldn’t finish; we laid around that night and watched TV for a while. She seemed to be content watching pre-season football, Raiders vs 49er’s; though there wasn’t much else on. We went bed early, and cuddled and talked a bit more, then fell asleep holding each other.

Tuesday, up a little early; I called my shop and let them know I was okay, and heading back that afternoon. Karen and I made gentle love one last time, I made one more breakfast for us; then we showered together, and I packed my things. She didn’t want to go the Brook’s with me; we said our goodbyes in the kitchen, promising we’d keep writing; then I drove off. I got to the Brook’s and was finally able to talk with Bob and Carol for a while; Bob gave JB and I each a check for $500 for our performing at the club the three nights. Before noon the rain let up a little; it looked on the new weather radar that we’d be chasing it all the way back to base; so we said our goodbyes and headed out. It wasn’t a bad trip, just even slower due to the rain; we got to the base a little after midnight, I dropped JB off at his barracks and headed for mine. I stayed up a little while, then fell asleep thinking about the weekend.

Back in the shop Wednesday morning; I was asked if I felt ready to go to the night shift and work by myself, starting next week. Absolutely; I got off work Friday at lunchtime, and was told to be back Sunday night by 1630. The weekend went by pretty quickly, JB and I just stayed on base and took it easy; it was definitely a change going to work Sunday night. Most of the night shift guys were single and all were easy to get along with; Staff Sergeant Anderson was in overall charge and gave me a quick idea of how the evenings usually went.

Just about everything had been shut off Friday afternoon when the shop closed, first order of business was to turn all the test benches on and run a self-test on them; that normally took an hour or so. Then check the Awaiting Maintenance boards to see what needed repaired/adjusted, and go to work. Almost everything was low priority; I pretty much choose what to work on and simply began. We had Maintenance Control and Supply support; most of the rest of the squadron was usually closed and quiet. We were expected to have eaten an early supper before coming to work, most of the guys brought a couple snacks in case they got hungry. The chow hall opened at 2300 (11 pm) with a limited selection, mostly breakfast; I was told that if you ate much that late, it would be probably be a while before you could get to sleep.

We could take an hour or so break in the middle of the shift sometime if we wanted, and the workload wasn’t too bad; or work through and take off a little early. I asked about studying in the shop and taking courses in the evening; SSgt told me he’d arrange my hours if needed, it wouldn’t be a problem. Nor was reading while I was waiting for the computer to do its thing, or writing letters and the like. Over all it was pretty ‘laid back’; we tended to get a lot more done than the day shift because we weren’t interrupted by anything.

I adjusted pretty quickly; the work was challenging without being stressful. I decided to do more independent studying and concentrate on taking as many of the CLEP exams as possible, concentrating first on history and math; both fairly easy for me. That meant I was taking an exam every three weeks or so, during the day when I was off work.

I continued getting up a little early to exercise; mainly because of the weather, which was still pretty warm. JB and I usually ate lunch at the chow hall together and got caught up on what we were doing, and planned our weekends. The beach season was over; most of the bigger restaurants and tourist outlets were closed until next spring, nothing much going on down there. We did find an interesting restaurant/bar in Beaufort that had a small stage; we’ll have to check it out again later. The base club was still doing an ‘open mike night’ once a week, the SSgt let me adjust my work hours so JB and I could play at that a couple times. No money but we were able to interact with an audience and stay proficient with our guitars; and we got to meet some new people. There was the excellent electric piano player that we really worked well with, but he was just about to get of the Corps; oh well.

September went by quickly; the last Saturday JB and I stuck our musical equipment in the Buick, and checked out the place in Beaufort again. It was in an old brick building next to the waterfront, the sign over the door said it had been in operation since 1905. It seemed to be in the town’s original main shopping district; original meaning the early 1800’s. The adjacent buildings were from the same era, the immediate area was commercial but the residential area started within a couple blocks. Many of those houses had plaques stating they had been built in the 17 and 1800’s; mostly small cottages and very quaint, though some had been modernized and added to. About 4 blocks away was the ‘new’ downtown area, probably built after WWII; with the county and city courthouses and offices.

We roamed around the town for a bit, and got to the restaurant in the middle of the afternoon; there were about a dozen or so customers and the place was fairly quiet. When we walked in there was a long wooden bar along the right side, very old and ornate; to the left were several small tables, all under a fairly low ceiling. About 20 feet into the building it opened to the 2-story main room; about 50’ wide and 75’ deep with a small stage to the left, and 40- 50 tables arranged facing the stage. The interesting part was the balcony upstairs, along the walls everywhere but over the stage. The balcony area was only 10 feet wide and overlooked the downstairs; but it looked like there was seating for maybe 150 up there. It was decorated like an old British/Irish pub; plaid and tartan everywhere with old coats of arms and medieval decorations on the walls.