Chapter 3

“A man reserves his true and deepest love not for the species of woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled, but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy.” George Jean Nathan

“Alan,” Mindy said, continuing our conversation from where we left off, “So, what was your grade point average?” she asked.

She was again lying with her head on my shoulder, her leg thrown across my stomach, and her arm across my chest. I was still running my fingers through her hair again and again.

“The GPA is very overrated,” I stated, “A lot more significant is the scores on the SATs (Scholastic Aptitude Tests). And my scores were higher than yours!”

Mindy actually questioned my honesty about my SATs, reminding me she had scored “nearly 2300”, out of a possible 2400.

“Well, Princess, there you go exaggerating. I know for a fact you only scored 2297. I really hate to burst your bubble, but I absolutely smoked you. This little ole redneck from North Carolina scored a 2304. So there,” and I actually stuck my tongue out at her.

“Seven points! Seven measly points?” she exclaimed, “and you are claiming that you ‘smoked me’?”

“There is one fact you can’t change, Princess,” I smugly declared, “you ONLY scored in the 2200s, and I scored in the 2300s.”

“Well, let’s see, Alan, how many years, um, make that decades ago did you take the test?” this little blonde vixen asked. “Was that still back in the Stone Age?”

“I’m sure the tests are much harder now!” she declared, returning the favor of sticking her tongue out at me.

I informed this young minx if she didn’t start respecting her “elders and betters,” even if they were “from the Stone Age,” I was going to do something her father obviously had failed to do – turn her over on my knee and give her the spanking she so richly deserved. I said this with a very naughty smile.

“I’m shaking in my boots,” she said, adding I wouldn’t dare.

Looking down at her body lying beside me, I laughed, saying you aren’t wearing boots – or anything else.

Then I took my hand and swatted her cute little backside, with not much more force than you would use to brush off a fly.

She immediately hollered like I had beat her and claimed she wouldn’t be able to walk for a week, calling me a brute and cretin!

We were both laughing, and finally I asked what could do to make up for the grievous injuries I had perpetuated upon her tender body.

When she suggested that I “kiss her boo-boo and make it better,” I decided that was only fitting. One kiss on her cute little butt led to another, then a third, then I kissed the back of her knee, and slowly started trailing my tongue upwards.

Suddenly it didn’t seem important I had cum inside her already – I only wanted to make her experience with me the best possible.

My tongue was soon deep inside her and her gasps and screams of pleasure were truly music to my ears.

After our third lovemaking session of the afternoon we were again lying together. I don’t think I have ever felt so completely comfortable, so incredibly relaxed with another human being.

As much as I had loved Julie, I was always aware of just how volatile her temper was, and I needed to always be a little cautious about things I might say or do.

Julie had had an incredibly difficult childhood, and had been used and abused throughout her teenage years. Her parents had both made it obvious to her she had been not only unplanned but also unwanted, and as she grew older she began using her body to find the love and acceptance which had been denied to her as a child.

Julie couldn’t believe I, or anyone, would be interested in her, given her past, but as I told her one morning, I “didn’t care who she had slept with, but only who she was going to sleep with in the future! And I hoped that would be with me!”

Even with the love we shared together, it was something of a volatile relationship.

During the first two years Julie also suffered from bouts of depression.

Four years of marriage, and two children had changed Julie so much. She was so much more open, and her dark, angry periods and her bouts of depression lessened as she learned just how much I loved her, and she could finally start loving herself as well.

I always knew, however, just how close her anger was to the surface, and how easy it was to say or do something that would set it off.

Julie had the classic “red-head Irish temper,” which could surface without warning. As fast as she could get angry, however, she was also that fast to get over it.

I can say, with complete confidence, that in four years we never went to bed angry with each other!

And there is something wonderful about making up for some angry words which were exchanged during the day, with a prolonged lovemaking session at night.

I didn’t think Mindy had an angry bone in her body! She was always so happy and seemingly carefree about anything other than her grades.

Of course, as I was to learn a few weeks later that wasn’t actually the case, but at the time I thought she was the sweetest, most gentle person I had perhaps ever known.

“So, what was your grade point average?” she again asked.

By now I was nearly asleep, even though it was still daylight outside. Neither of us had gotten much sleep during the night, both had gotten up early, and now I had made love to Mindy for the third time in the afternoon.

I was comfortable, relaxed and nearly dozing.

“3.97,” I answered, without even realizing it.

Her scream of “Ah Ha!” woke me up!

“I knew it,” she delightfully exclaimed.

“I knew I was smarter than you are,” she said, “and now I have the proof.”

When she told me what I said, I started explaining that statistically speaking there was no real difference between a 3.97 and a 4.0, but there was a tremendous difference between a 2297 and a 2304.

“You are talking a tiny fraction, just hundredths of a percentage point on one, and seven whole points on the other,” I tried explaining, but the more I talked, the more she just smiled and kept saying “I knew it, I knew it.”

Women!

After arguing the point for a while, or rather I was doing the arguing and she was just smiling, we were lying together again when Mindy actually said the words I had been dreading to hear, and yet for the first time in a long time, sort of looked forward to hearing.

“Alan, I never dreamed I could feel this good with anyone,” she said, “Alan, I love you. I mean it, I ... Love ... You!”

I took a deep breath and opened my mouth to say those same three, meaningless words back to her – the same words I had parroted to, I guess, dozens of other women in the past four or five years, and yet nothing came out. The words had no real meaning to me anymore, and yet suddenly I could not say them.

I could feel Mindy’s disappointment, and knew I had hurt her by remaining silent, but I could not say anything.

After a couple of minutes, Mindy gave me a very tight hug, kissed my chest and I heard her softly say, “It’s all right, Alan, it’s all right, I understand.”

She quickly fell asleep, but I laid there for quite some time wondering why I could not tell this girl a lie, even if it was a lie she wanted to hear, and one I was quite experienced in delivering.

Then I became even more troubled.

Was I afraid of telling her a lie?

Or even more afraid of hearing myself say something that might be true?

Love was a weakness! Love was a weakness!

What I was feeling couldn’t be love! It couldn’t! It could not be love!

I was barely still awake when a stupid, meaningless love song from the king of stupid, meaningless love songs started echoing through my head. I couldn’t believe I used to love listening to Paul Anka:

Put your head on my shoulder
Hold me in your arms, baby
Squeeze me oh so tight and show me
That you love me too{br}

Those are just words aren’t they?
Put your lips next to mine dear,
Won’t you kiss me once oh baby,
Just a kiss goodnight and maybe
You and I will fall in love{br}

Just stupid words?
People say that love is a game
A game, you just can’t win
If there’s a way I’ll find it someday
And then this fool will rush in
Just stupid, meaningless words!
Put your head on my shoulder
Whisper in my ear baby
Words I wanna hear, tell me
Tell me that you love me too{br}

Just stupid, stupid, meaningless words.
Put your head on my shoulder
Whisper in my ear baby
Words I wanna hear baby
Put your head on my shoulder

The last conscious thought I had before falling asleep was my repeating, over and over: Love is a weakness. Love is a weakness. Loveisaweakness. Loveisaweakness. Loveisaweak...

Exhaustion finally took over and I feel into a deep sleep.

The next thing I knew was someone shaking my shoulder, almost yelling, “Alan, wake up, Alan, wake up. Alan, what’s wrong?”

I finally woke up, and felt such a profound sadness it was almost like a living thing. At first I didn’t know where I was, I barely knew who I was, and I had no idea who was with me.

“Alan, are you are right?” someone was asking, and as I looked over I remembered Mindy and the afternoon.

My face was wet, and as I reached up my first thought was someone had thrown water in my face.

“Alan, what’s wrong?” I heard Mindy ask, then she added, “You were talking and crying in your sleep.”

Me? Crying? Impossible! Yes, I had a few tears in my eyes that one day, hearing the song “Dream Lover,” but actual crying? NO!

I could vaguely remember some other guy who was capable of crying in the past.

That guy cried when Julie said she would marry him, he cried both times when he found out his wife was pregnant, and he cried both times when he first held each of his sons. That guy was always emotional.

I had only cried once ... well ... since I found out Julie, Joseph and Jason were dead.

And yes, I cried at first. Standing in the hospital, looking at Julie. She simply looked like she was sleeping.

The doctors later told me her death was instantaneous, from a broken neck.

And I cried even more when they finally let me see my two sons. At first the emergency room attendants refused, but I kept insisting. I wish I had listened. Oh God, how I wish I had listened! A father should never have to see what I saw that day as I looked at their broken bodies.

They were all killed while stopped at a traffic light. The 18-wheeler behind them never even slowed down, hitting them at about 50 miles per hour.

Julie barely had a scratch on her, but it had taken the EMTs hours to cut the car to pieces (after removing the cab of the semi) to remove Joseph’s and Jason’s mangled bodies.

But that other person, the one who could cry, had also died that day.

Had died when one of his high school friends, who it turned out was the investigating state trooper on the scene, came to see him in the hospital.

When that old high school friend explained the driver not only didn’t have a scratch, but was so drunk he didn’t even know he had been in a wreck and killed three people.

And taken everything from me.

The driver kept telling my friend to “call my sister, she’s an executive with the company, and she will take care of everything, just like she did before.”

That’s when we found out he had two other DUIs, and the sister had managed to get it swept under the rug so her brother could keep driving.

That other guy, the one who could cry, died that day.

I had always been a very positive person – the glass is always half-full type. And I didn’t turn into the glass is half-empty after their deaths.

No, after their deaths, there was no glass! There was ... nothing ... inside any more.

For four years Julie and to a much lesser extent, the Marine Corps HAD been my life. I loved being a Marine, loved the pride, the friendship and camaraderie, but after meeting Julie she quickly became the most important thing in my life.

When Joseph and Jason had been born, it just increased the love I felt for Julie. I could spend hours just watching Joseph and Jason. Knowing they were not MY sons, but OUR sons. These two precious boys were the result of the love Julie and I had.

No ... the glass was not half-empty ... there was no glass!

The only thing inside me now was hate. Hate for the man who had taken them away, hate for the company that allowed him to keep driving.

I have not cried in five years. At least not while I was awake. Yes, there were some mornings when I woke up with a wet pillow, but I did NOT cry while awake.

Not even at the funeral, not even when they lowered the caskets into the ground. I had too much hate in me to cry.

When Mindy told me I had been crying, I felt an enormous, overpowering rage. The kind of mindless rage that can cause people to hurt others.