This is the story of a returning injured soldier to a small town in Illinois. There is no sex in the first part, just the characters rediscovering themselves. The story itself is less about the sex and more about the relationships.
Chapter 1. Finding my way back home...
15 September 2009
I was recovering from my second shoulder surgery and was still trying to get back to sleep after a bad dream when a face and a person popped into my head. Lily Johnson. I don't know what made me think of her all these years later. Maybe it was just being back home with my mother in the small town in Illinois where I grew up, but it made me think back to the time when I was in high school and I was enchanted by Lily. Lily was about 5' 5" and had dark hair over pale skin, just like her mother. I remember that she and her mother had both had nice curves, but her mother was slimmer with a nice figure, pretty face, and those same deep blue eyes. Lily was still a little chubby, but the most beautiful girl I knew. Her eyes shined whenever she looked at me and smiled. I remember telling my friends that they both had 1000 watt smiles. They had straight white teeth and gorgeous full lips. When they smiled it looked so genuine that you couldn't help but smile yourself. I just knew that Lily was going to turn out like her mother, happy, fussing over her children, and enjoying life in general. These memories were nostalgic, harkened back to simple, easy times, and were much better than the dreams I had been having. The one about the ambush in Afghanistan that got me shot and led, eventually, to these two surgeries.
My mother, Janet, had been diagnosed with bladder cancer, which is very treatable when caught early, so I hoped that things would go well. But she did need help and my father had disappeared when I was 10, so it was up to me to provide the care she required.
I finally fell back to sleep, especially with the painkillers they were giving me. I thought about the Army and how I had loved that family when I finally drifted off.
The bullets were pinging and thudding around me, my shoulder was on fire. There were people shouting directions and my platoon sergeant was yelling and pointing something out to me. I nodded. We got up and started to circle to the left to outflank the enemy. We were circling and firing while the rest of the platoon fixed the enemy in place with their fire. We were coming around to their left flank and I was focusing on one man with an RPG...
I woke with a start, the dream slowly fading - again. I thought I could smell the cordite and blood, mixed with the dust and the sweat. I could just make out the fading faces of the 7 dead young men in my platoon. I remembered the attack, being shot, and then counterattacking with my platoon sergeant. As the dream faded, the reality of pulling out each man's death letter and sending it to their families cast a pall over what was a bright beautiful day outside. I tried to go back to sleep -- and not dream.
Chapter 2. Lily.
16 September 2009
This small town had not changed much in the time that I had been gone. It had two gas stations, one at each end of town, one large grocery store, several small independent stores, a hardware store, a bank, a couple independent restaurants, three chain restaurants (Pizza Hut, McDonald's, and Subway) and the obligatory set of taverns that all the small towns in southern Illinois had. There was one main street where the speed limit was 25. 25! I couldn't stand to go 25 anymore. This small place had a decent school system with an elementary school, middle school, and high school that served the surrounding area. There was not much there and many younger people seemed to leave and only come back to visit, which was exactly what I had had in mind when I left in 2001.
The houses in the few blocks right around the older section of town were typical 1930s style, two-story, with large front porches. They surrounded the main small square with the police station and the post office and several blocks in either direction. The area that came along in the late '60s early '70s was belted around the older section and consisted of mostly three and four bedroom ramblers. This was the type my mother had. There were some brand new homes, mostly built within the last five years, on the northern and western outskirts that were more modern two-story or split-level family homes. This recent growth must mean that things are looking up for the town.
It was on this day that I ran into Lily again. I had just dropped my mother off at the hospital, which was in the next town over from where we lived, and made my way into a small cafΓ© situated next to the medical complex. It was similar to a Denny's in the seating arrangement with a counter in the middle wrapped around the kitchen and seating around the outside along the windows. The booths were red and white checkered and the tables had matching tablecloths. I sat down in a booth on the medical complex side and a cute little waitress brought me a glass of water and the menu. She left me to look at the menu and I perused it, looking for something filling, but not too bad for me. I had at least learned to eat better in the last few years.
I looked up from my menu for my waitress when I saw Lily. To say I was shocked would have been an understatement, but I recovered before she saw me. She was dressed in a large apron that was covered with stains as if she had been cooking. She had just come from the back and was telling a couple of the waitresses something when she glanced in my direction and saw me staring. She smiled a tired, wan smile and made her way over to me. I couldn't help but notice that her 1000 watt smile had dimmed to the 100 watt range. She had also slimmed down to where she was almost a clone of her mother when I had last seen her. She was slim, trim, and downright beautiful.
"Jon. How are you?" It seemed like a perfunctory question.
I looked into those blue eyes and they were the same gorgeous color. I could see that the teeth and lips and cheekbones were the same. But there seemed to be an absence of the fire and energy that had made her and these attributes so damned irresistible when I was in high school. "Lily, it's so good to see you." I started to get up, but it's not easy with an arm still in a sling, so she leaned over and gave me a peck on the cheek and a socially acceptable hug.
"You look pretty good, Jon. I read about you in the paper. How's the shoulder?"
I looked down sheepishly. The Army had something they called a Hometown News Release that they sent to a soldier's home town newspaper to tell everyone what great things the soldier had done when a medal was awarded or a school graduation occurred. Unfortunately, for most soldiers it was embarrassing and a little disconcerting. "Thanks. I'm fine. How are you? I haven't seen you since you graduated." I changed the subject.
She smiled that tired smile again. "Pretty well." She looked back toward the front of the cafΓ© and I could tell she didn't want to stick around. "I'm working, so I need to get back. See you later?" Her body was positioned like she was ready to leave, but something in her posture seemed to be telling me to please say yes, that I would see her later.