Chapter 13

Bob's ninety days of con leave seemed to flash by. They had been married only two months when it was time for him to report back to Walter Reed. He still hadn't had time to go through the process of getting his car out of the long term storage lot at Riley, and they had no idea what was going to happen to him, so Julia drove him back to Washington.

The first place he went, even before signing in, was to Col Bell's office. The psychiatrist was with a patient, but when Bob explained why he was there, the receptionist told the couple to have a seat in the waiting area and that she'd try to squeeze them in, in a few minutes.

Twenty-five minutes later Bell came to the waiting area.

"I can give you five minutes," he said, looking at Bob and then Julia.

"I brought something to show you," said Bob, as he and Julia stood up. "And someone to introduce you to." He held out the packet of Any Soldier mail that had been sitting on his lap while they waited.

"What's this?" asked the doctor, taking the letters.

"It's Any Soldier mail," said Bob. "I got it while I was in country. This is the woman responsible for it. She was named Julia Miller then. But while I was on leave I married her."

Bell stared at the young soldier, and then his eyes swiveled to the woman. She didn't look nervous.

"Maybe I can manage ten minutes," said Bell.

Ten minutes later the phone on Bell's desk made a sustained beeping noise.

"I know, I know, I've got an appointment," he said to the phone.

"Sir, that's what I wanted to tell you," said a tinny female voice. "Your three o'clock still hasn't shown up yet."

"Call me when he does," said Bell, and turned back to the couple sitting in the chairs just across from him.

He finished reading one of the letters Julia had received from Bob only a few days before he was injured. Then he looked back at a faded, folded lavender piece of paper that had been in Bob's uniform pocket when it was taken off of him in surgery. It would have been obvious to a blind man that there was intense interest being expressed between these two in their letters.

"And you thought she was your sister," he said.

"That's my fault," said Julia. "When I first saw him things were crazy. There was this woman there, in uniform, and she asked him if I was his sister and when he said yes ... I let him believe that's who I was. I was excited and relieved and ... confused I guess. So many people had refused to help me find him. I wasn't at my best, mentally. As soon as I had time to think about what was happening I told him the truth."

"And what happened then?" asked the doctor, looking at Bob.

"It was like this jumble of memories popped into my head, like pages of a book, but loose, and not all the pages, and not in the right order."

"But you remembered who Julia Miller was," prompted the doctor.

"I remembered that I liked her..." Bob glanced at his wife and lover. "A lot." He frowned. "But I couldn't remember why I liked her so much."

"Go on. What happened then?"

"We spent two days together, and then, because I was afraid she'd get in trouble if they found out she wasn't really my sister, she went back home to Boonville."

"Boonville," repeated Bell, his eyes taking on a faraway look. They cleared. "That's where your ... sister ... is from." He frowned. "That's where I sent you for your leave, as I recall. I remember the name because of its association with Daniel Boone."

Bob spoke. "Her ... um ... status has been corrected in the records. And I actually did find my real sister. She had to move to Kansas City while I was deployed and was hospitalized for months. It's complicated.

"And you two decided to get married." The doctor's eyebrows rose.

"You make it sound so simple," complained Julia. "It wasn't simple at all!"

"Good," said the doctor.

"I beg your pardon?" said Julia.

"Getting married is a serious thing," said Bell. "And for a TBI patient to do so can be a cause of concern. We're still learning things about TBI and the side effects." He stopped. "Speaking of which, how are your headaches?"

"I don't have any," said Bob.

"Dizziness? Disorientation? Confusion?"

Julia's opinion about the Army moderated a little after Bob signed in from being on leave and informed the clerk he was now married, and that his wife was with him at Walter Reed. She was asked for her military ID card, which they hadn't obtained yet. That led to the couple being sent to Personnel, where their marriage license was requested. Neither of them had thought to bring that with them, but the clerk there simply asked where they had been married, called the Cooper County court house and had a notarized copy faxed to him. Half an hour later, Julia had an Army dependent ID card and a quarter pound of pamphlets, memos and brochures explaining how things worked for dependent wives and husbands.

This time they got a room at the Mologne House, which was, for all intents and purposes, a hotel on the installation. It was once they were in the room that Julia made Bob sit down on the bed and have the discussion she'd been trying to have since they left the psychiatrist's office.

"What are we going to do if they send you back to Iraq?" she asked.

"If they send me back, I have to go," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I have just over two years left on this enlistment. I was going to do twenty, but I've only been in ten so far. I hadn't planned on getting married."

"Sorry to inconvenience you so," she said, her voice flat and dry.

"You know better than that," he said, quite seriously. "I'm not going to re-up when the time comes. I'll go in the reserves instead ... assuming the board says I can stay at all. When I get out I'll use the GI Bill and go to college."

"It sounds so simple," she said.

"It is, basically."

"No it's not, Bob. A month from now you could be back in Iraq, getting yourself killed."

"That's not likely," said Bob, sounding more sure of himself than he was.

"But it could happen," she insisted.

"It's much more likely that I'll be sent back to Ft. Riley, to the rear detachment."

"Okay, so let's say that happens. That's almost as bad. You're there and I'm in Boonville, getting more and more pregnant and trying to teach."

"You can't get more and more pregnant," he said, smiling. "You're either pregnant or you're not."

"You know what I mean!" she snapped.

"I wish you could get more pregnant," he said, sounding wistful. "If I could get you pregnant again right now I'd jump at the chance."

"You want me to have a litter?" She sounded indignant, but it was just show, because she burst out into laughter.

He grinned. "I like the sound of that. You'd be my bitch, and have my litters."

She looked outraged, but was suddenly removing her shirt. With practiced ease she reached behind her and undid her bra. She dropped it on the bed and shook her breasts at him.

"I don't have enough breasts for a whole litter," she said.

"You have enough for me," he husked, and reached for her.

When they were naked he put her on her hands and knees, and entered her from behind.

He leaned over and cupped her breasts as he began sliding in and out.

"You're a sweet little bitch," he whispered at the back of her head.

She looked over her shoulder at him, her eyes flashing dangerously.

"I mean it in a good way," he said weakly.

She waited until he stood back up on his knees, and then rolled away from him.

"What are you doing?" he complained, his shiny manhood bobbing in the air.

"You need to be punished for calling me that name," she said.

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Any Soldier

Lubrican

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