Another Springtime

Chapter 12: My Kitten and Her Forget-me-nots

With no visible hesitation and a diligence that was quite impressive, she had taken up the housekeeping and homemaking roles of a wife. These seemed to come quite naturally to her, and she embarked on each new thing like it was an exciting new adventure. She took special delight in calling me "Captain" and, when she did, it told me she was thinking in terms of contributing to our efficiency as a team. She was quick and disciplined to hold to our plans for meeting and conference times to plan calendars and such things, how we divvied up the duties in the apartment, financial decisions, and all that. In response, I tried always to make sure there were little "together moments" recurring frequently to refresh ourselves with a bit of tenderness and attention to each other. We were happy doing things together... most everything, and in the process my fairy princess scattered her sparkling magic fairy dust everywhere in her wake, and made my life an unbelievable delight.

What was very pleasing to me as well was observing her as a person. The anxious, fearful eighteen-year-old girl of the previous summer had transitioned into a nineteen-year-old young lady with energy and creativity, and a delightsome manner with her husband that brought me joy unbounded.

Not to be overlooked here is the little routine that evolved between us during our working periods. Various activities in the apartment kept us busy a good part of the time. Much of her time was in her kitchen, or attending to our clothes... and, as I said, she seemed to derive great satisfaction from seeing her blouses and my shirts neatly ironed, and now she was not at all shy about hanging my shirts in what had not become 'our' closet. A large portion of my work was on the computer, and she would drift by behind me, padding about our apartment in her bare feet like a contented kitten and seeming to me to keep me always in the center of her world, and often stop to rub my shoulders and neck for a while. The large pillow I had kept for her on the floor to my right I soon replaced with one of those large bean-filled naugahide bags, over which I tossed a thick, dark blue cashmere throw.

The setting caught her attention immediately, and she looked at me questioning, not imagining what I had in mind.

"The young girl that comes to sit next to me sometimes when she just wants to be close to me has... well, she has changed."

It had not occurred to me that she would wait for an explanation, but after a few moments of her standing there mute in surprise the words came.

"She was a good friend and companion, an excellent conversationalist, and I always enjoyed her company... now she has become much more. She is my sweetheart, my wife, my lover, my darling... a first magnitude star in my universe...my heart's delight... and I want her to know that she has a place at my side, a very special place... reserved always for her, and her alone. And that, even when I am working, I welcome her presence at my side, her love and beauty soothing my heart and soul."

Her little bag of embroidery threads and needles lay where I had placed it on the table, and now I tossed it lightly back to where she had last left it on the pillow... now, however, the little red and white bag lay awaiting her on the soft cashmere throw.

"This shall, I hope," I concluded with a little flourish and bow, "make M'Lady's place a little more comfortable and her labors in our home allow her moments to grace my presence with her sweet intimacy."

She was dumbstruck and just looked at me with an incredulous expression, and it pleased me to catch her off-guard so. Looking back, there was, nevertheless, very little in my words beyond her grasp.

At my open arms she recovered, smiled sweetly and stepped into my embrace. "Thank you, Dace. You always do things for me...

you spoil me

," she cooed seductively as she reached her arms up around my neck. It was always a special reward for her to do that, since in the process her beautiful breasts were crushed against my chest and my hands had full access to the beautiful curves of her back and bottom.

Her lips were full and warm and fresh on mine and her eyes twinkled with delight.

"That which is so nearly perfect does not, M'Lady, incline to spoilage... unless treated rudely and mishandled.

Pampered

a little from time to time, as is her rightful due, and

handled

softly with love and affection – usually and with gentleness, though sometimes roughly in passion as well – your beauty's bud blossoms all the more bounteously."

At that she dropped her eyes and snuggled all the closer in my arms, and I unzipped her shorts in back and slipped my hand inside to squeeze her bare bottom a little.

"

Meeee-oow

!"

She was purring like a love kitty begging to be cuddled.

I had learned that I was not to my advantage to accept every one of her frequent invitations to frolic. Firstly, were I to do so, little else would get done; more to the point, of course, was that my own endurance would soon be drained. I did not yet allow myself the reality of thinking myself an 'older' man, but there was no overlooking the facts of the matter. Since our honeymoon it was quite evident. She could match me for enthusiasm and most definitely had youthful endurance in her favor.

Few knights, I wager, will have been called upon to venture into such a perilous quest! Yet, the call often sounded

... to horse, to horse

!

* * *

This is not a story with a theological bent, let alone any religious orientation, and yet religion in one of its many forms plays a part in all our lives since this is often the basis for our view of the world around us. Germans have even created a word to depict this: '

Weltanschauung

' – literally 'world view' along with a number of related spin offs. As might be anticipated, our individual religious beliefs arose in our nearly continuous discussions about everything under the sun.

It fair to say that my faith for me has been a corner stone of my life, and I allowed as how hers would be similarly important in hers. In pursuing her heart I elected at the very beginning to allow her complete freedom of conscience in this matter. To a degree I was correct in my assumption, but I soon found that her inquisitive nature and youthful enthusiasm for learning and exploring opened doors for her through which I had long since passed in my earlier days.

The entire topic of religion was first broached over the matter of sexiness, and the traditional Christian teaching that sexual encounters between a man and a woman are inherently lustful and thus sinful. She presumed that my thoughts on the idea would have been parallel with those of her school proctors, and when I voiced thoughts somewhat at variance her interest was peaked. The place of marriage and the family in the structure of God's plan for his children, as I saw it, triggered a lengthy discussion. Over the period of several weeks she came back again and again to the matter, basically seeking more information from me in explanation of my much more positive view of the matter. The doctrine of 'Original Sin' and other points came up in turn and she wanted to know how they fit together.

I was sufficiently familiar with the teachings of her faith to work with them, neither supporting nor refuting, but trying to draw pieces of information together and paint a composite picture. She was quick enough to follow me very well, poked holes in my reasoning when I left some feature untouched, and wanted scriptural references for the points I made. In my own thinking, fostered by my faith, the agency of man in the overall Gospel Plan is an absolutely critical point, and I often mentioned that I thought she was at complete liberty to seek out truth wherever she could find it, inside a structured church and belief system or otherwise.

From my comments and explanations of my ideas, she picked those that touched her and came back to them for more discussion. These included God's love for his children and the very enriching role of the man and the woman together in establishing family units and making homes for their children to grow up in love and security and learning. This theme of love and marriage between a man and a woman being a divinely appointed institution and the proper priority for each in seeking the highest fulfillment in life – in mortality and the life beyond – filled many delightful hours for us and in fact seemed to offer many insights that opened new and stimulating vistas to us at every turn.

Two aspects here need to be touched on for completeness and understanding. In our continuing and very open discussion of such things, before and after our marriage, we reached a rather high plateau, I think, of unity in our

Weltanschauung

. This was a key achievement. In a sense we created our own, to which we both then readily subscribed, and to which we returned constantly as we worked out between us our responses to life's many challenges.

The second dealt directly with sexuality. After the other basic points were more or less in place, the ideas that I had voiced earlier about 'sexy' not being a part of a girl's 'beauty' fell into place for her and matched her own personal inclination. She told me that she felt the desire to be alluring to and treasured by her husband, and I confirmed our mutuality in that regard, and that I too wanted to be her ideal man. With our agreement on the foregoing, the obvious corollary was simply a given. Physical intimacy outside of our marriage was crossing over a rational boundary we ourselves set, and undesirable.

She told me one evening in my arms that this was something that brought her to the point of knowing she was in love with me. During those few weeks in Longview and her two or three dates with Nick, as pleasant as he made them for her, she found that she wanted

my

companionship and attention,

my

arms around her, she wanted

me

to kiss her... she wanted to look her best for and to dance with

me

.

Thus, our faith and religious understanding have played a useful and helpful role for both of us from the beginning, leading us to a greater unity with each other.

That was the point, after all.

* * *

Perhaps a short account of our swimming at the professor's home needs to be added here.

Earlier she had in fact been serious about me teaching her to swim well, and over the months together and our outings at Bangor she had in fact become a very skillful swimmer. Each one of our excursions to the Submarine Base through the year reemphasized my vulnerability to her charms, sometimes my vulnerability was very obvious, and that created some problems. Fortunately, in the deep water, it was not so visible, and the opportunity for serious lap swimming helped cool my ardor.

The unavoidable results of our regular swimming sessions together was that she became progressively more relaxed with me, and for such there was both an up side and, of course, a down side. Watching me swim off my tension became, without me realizing what was happening at the time, a recurring thrill for her. Either on the edge of the pool, perched like a cute little water nymph on the side, often with her pretty legs and feet in the water, or more often in the water and hanging on to the side, she watched me with, I soon realized, admiring eyes. After about the fifth time like that together I recognized what I was seeing. As I completed my laps and caught my breath she was there with, well,

that look

... that innocent, hero-worshipping, smile of hers. I was solving one problem, even while contributing to another. It was hopeless, but as it turned out to our mutual benefit, then I can look back and laugh at my predicament then.

Over the months from that first time, and we seldom missed a week of exercising, except when we were in Longview, and she had become a very accomplished swimmer. We often swam our laps together. By the time we returned after our honeymoon she was already fairly familiar with the base and pool, at least the facilities we used, and the idea of being on a naval station was no longer the scary unknown it had been at first. I guess I've got to tell you first about the evening at dinner at the officer's club when we went dancing. There were a couple of long term projects in advance of that, and one was teaching her to dance. That had not been part of either her schooling nor her home environment, so it was something she had never experienced out in public. We practiced in our apartment on many occasions over several months after our marriage. I'm not sure I could have managed that before. Holding her in my arms was a very powerful stimulant. She learned quickly and polished very quickly a sense of rhythm than was quite natural, and we enjoyed dancing... foxtrots and waltzes... all right, not the latest stuff, but I too am a victim of my own times and limitations.

Anyway, the club had a live jazz ensemble playing on one weekend, the style and music of which I had long admired. I decided this would be our dancing premier evening together. The response to the live music was very good, and there were a number of others present as well. The flyer had also said 'semi-formal' which meant in this case that the men would wear their dress uniforms and the ladies had a chance to dress up in their evening gowns. Christine was accordingly both excited to have a reason to first design, then make herself a new gown, and then to wear it out to a nice event like that, and then, of course, anxious as all get out that she would somehow fail to please me. This last eventuality concerned her, but troubled me not at all. I had flowers delivered to the Q for her, including a rich scarlet rosebud, like before. The impact on her was even greater, I think, than had been earlier.

She had seen my uniform more than once at our storage site, hanging wrapped in it's plastic dust cover, but there had been no appropriate time to wear it in her presence, and so, dressing together in our room at the Q was a real party for both of us. She was pleased for me to notice and approve of her gown, but was much more excited, it seemed, for me to wear my uniform. I have to tell you that she remarked about my ribbons and medals more than once, wanting me to tell her what they meant, and decided that the Presidential Unit Citation was her favorite because she liked the colors, and that the Navy Expeditionary Medal for submarine special operations sounded very important. I was thrilled inside at her interest, I don't mind telling you. Also, the naval rank structure was a complete mystery to her, but after observing for several months in and out of the Navy Exchange on the base some of the men wearing their dress uniforms with gold stripes or red chevrons on their sleeves she was beginning to tell readily the officers from the enlisted men, and for the officers it was easy to discern, more gold stripes on the cuff of the uniform sleeves meant more rank. She told me that she didn't think she had seen any officer around with as many stripes as I had, and looked up at me as were I perhaps some kind of exalted being. Now, add to that her girlish delight at dancing with me, and doing our little special steps that we had played with at home before, and knowing she was beautiful and attractive in her gown, and with her fresh rosebud in her hand...you can easily imagine I felt like the most important man there and had the most exquisitely beautiful girl on my arm.

That evening in the club she commented that everyone was wearing their dress uniform and that I had more gold lace on my sleeves than anyone else in the room.... except one other that she spotted, and then a second when the captain and his wife arrived. We met and chatted with several other couples that evening, and one of the other ladies, a lieutenant's wife, I think, responded to her question about the two other men... one was the commanding officer of one of the submarines based there, she was told, the older man with four stripes on his sleeve was the base commander. When Christine was again in my arms on the dance floor she had to tell me... mentioning that I had just as many stripes on my sleeve as he did, and only one less than the captain.

I have thought back on that several times. Never had I seen her so conscious of rank and status among people, and I wondered about her reaction. Later she raised the matter herself as we lay in bed together that night. She seemed not to pick up on any of the jargon that went with all the gold lace and the fruit salad of ribbons, but saw them as markers and milestones of progress in my life – her words – that was so foreign and incomprehensible to her, and knowing that I had done so many important things made her feel safe with me and more loved than before. The Navy ought to hire her, I mused to myself, to write advertising copy for the recruiters.

The crowning moment that evening was, nevertheless, when one of the younger officers, a junior grade lieutenant more in her own age bracket, approached and asked her to dance. He might have guessed Christine was my daughter, or a niece or something. With his choice, of course, I had no argument, and to allow it might be thought of as a courtesy I could hardly deny, but I had no intention of sharing her with anybody. She, however, nipped the entire matter right in the bud. She informed the gentleman very sweetly and with one of her million dollar smiles that this was her honeymoon and she preferred to spend it with her husband, thanking him for the invitation and letting him know that perhaps another evening may be appropriate. Wow! Her initiative and graciousness were remarkable, and I was impressed and honored as well as thrilled. The man expressed his regrets, offered her his card thinking quickly nodded to me his congratulations, and withdrew pleasantly even if obviously disappointed. Christine read the card and handed it to me, asking not about the man but about the submarine in which he served, named on the card. Yes, I told her, that boat was a sister to those in which I had made my patrols a few years earlier.

Well, there are little things in life that have some meaning too, and the look of adoration in her eyes was scandalously intense.

OK, back to the swimming incident

There had been a spell of clear weather that next spring, about early April. The temperature was up there and the sun was bright for several days running. She was delighted continually with the various species of wild flowers that were suddenly in bloom at the most unexpected places. We had added to our exercise regimen a weekly walk in one of the parks, and Discovery Park, the Army's old coast defense reserve at Fort Lawton, was a favorite. Like me, she loved the green and the trees and the particular richness of the forest, and the wild flowers were abundant in their bright colors that spring.

We met them in the parking lot as we completed our walk one evening. No, not the flowers... an older professor of mine, just retired from the University, and his wife were just leaving a meeting at the visitor's center and he recognized me. We chatted for a moment, then he turned to his wife and then to me. They were leaving for a month's trip back to Philly to visit their grandchildren for a marriage and a reunion or something. They were hoping to have some friend check on their home nearby in Magnolia while they were away. Might we be willing?

We were happy to oblige.

At their suggestion, we dropped by the afternoon before they were to leave to get acquainted a little, and pick up the keys. They had a magnificent swimming pool, and immediately Christine was excited about the possibility of swimming together. Later, in the car, she turned to me with a tender pleading in her voice.