Disclaimers: Standard stuff, really. Anyone partaking in sexy shit is over eighteen years of age. This story is pure fiction, and each and every character in my little tale resides in the deep recesses of my mind. I repeat. THIS STORY IS FICTION.
The title of my story references the 1961 movie that introduced Sophia Loren to the Western world. A movie that won her the Academy Award for best actress.
Most people count their lucky stars to find one woman to love. I, on the other hand, was double lucky to find two very different women to love. Not at the same time, mind you, but two separate wives. One, who had her life cut way too short, and the other who sort of came out of nowhere.
I guess I should supply a bit of history, here. I'm Jaxson Harris, now a forty year old Assistant Police Chief in the city of Richland, Washington. This city is one third of The Tri-Cities. The other two being Pasco and Kennewick.
Richland started out just a dusty little farming community, until the United States Government took a huge empty plot of land, in early 1943 and created the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, and the complete community used to house the people who moved in there. This entity was created to supply all the necessary atomic materials needed for The Manhattan Project. For the uninformed, that was the project that created Fat Man and Little Boy, the two nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in 1945, that ended World War Two.
Richland went from a village of 300 people in early 1943, to nearly 20,000 by the end of World War Two, in August, 1945.
It now has more than 60,000 residents, plus both Pasco and Kennewick are even larger. The greater Tri-Cities area is now over 300,000 people, with a very diverse economy.
Our city literally exploded just from the Nuclear Reservation, and the hoards of people brought to our region.
In honor of our number one industry, Richland High School's nickname was and still is "The Bombers" For the longest time, a mushroom cloud was featured on every sports uniform. Seriously.
My grandfather was an engineer, recruited to help in the design of the necessary equipment used to meet that end.
Grandpa made sure his two sons, Dale and Cale did not follow in his footsteps. Both my dad, Dale and uncle Cale went into law enforcement.
Dad eventually became the sheriff of Benton county, of which Richland is the county seat. Uncle Cale became the sheriff of neighboring Franklin county, where both Pasco and Kennewick are located. Are we all clear on that?
I must have been in the third grade, or thereabouts, when my older sister and I got a new babysitter. I was eight years old, and my sister, Jenny was eleven.
This babysitter was absolutely beautiful. Brenda Gibson, all 5 feet tall of her, and, at fifteen years of age, still looked like a boy, except for her light brown ponytail. This was the late 80's, and this was a rather conservative area where high school boys didn't have ponytails. Even with her lacking the curves of most fifteen year olds, I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the entire state.
She treated me like I was her equal, not some chubby eight year old, who was trying just to fit in with my fellow third graders.
All I could think of, when staring at her, was the smash hit by Paul Anka, from 1957, Diana, his lament to an older girl.
"I'm so young, and you're so old, this Diana I've been told, I love you with all my heart, and I hope we never part." And the song continued, and Paul Anka became the superstar that he still is.
Brenda remained our babysitter for nearly three years, when my parents finally decided that my sister, at fourteen, was old enough to watch over me.
Even with the good relationship I had with Jenny, I still thought about Brenda more than just a little.
As I progressed into middle school, I started to lose my chubbyness and started to grow by leaps and bounds.
By the eighth grade I started playing both football and basketball. I tried baseball, but found I stunk at hitting that round ball with a round bat. Who knew?
I did fairly well at football, being able to catch most every ball thrown my way. Basketball, on the other hand, I did marginally well. Since Richland high school had a very rich tradition on the hardwood, I knew any successes in sports would be on the gridiron.
Starting with my freshman year at Richland high, I did start seeing some success in football. I actually played a few plays on the varsity team, but spent the majority of the season on the JV team. Having topped the 6' mark, and weighing a solid 180, I knew my chances of playing more would come in the next three seasons.
The other major change, along with another growth spurt, was meeting new girls. One in particular really caught my eye. Connie Nichols. She was a bubbly, outgoing girl, who I'd never known in middle school.
She was as different as possible from my babysitter from long ago. Where Brenda was this tiny, quiet girl, Connie was brassy, confident, and fairly well put together. By this, I mean she had quite a figure
There was talk all through the school that she like boys of all different colors. Not that I was racist, by any stretch of the imagination, but even with our school being fairly diverse, interracial dating wasn't all that common.
Connie and I did have a few classes together, and we did talk nearly every day. Not that it bothered me to hear some of the talk about her being a bit on the wild side, but we just seemed to be in the just friends category.
Each and every time we talked, it seemed as if we wouldn't be anything but friends, and I was OK with that.
I did have a girlfriend, or two during high school, but never anything too serious.
After graduation, I started a two year program at Columbia Basin Community College, in neighboring Pasco, majoring in Criminal Justice.
With my dad and uncle in law enforcement, I knew from an early age, that's what I wanted to do, also.
While completing my two year program, I did have a girlfriend, or two, but wasn't one of the typical party guys. I wasn't exactly celibate, either.
Neither of the girls I dated more than once, or twice came close to a long term relationship.
Upon graduation, I started with the Richland police department, staying away from both my dad and my uncle. There was enough talk about family ties, without me joining either of their county's sheriff department.
Finishing my training, not only was I finally earning a paycheck, I was able to find a fairly nice, small apartment, to give myself some independence.
For most of my first six months, after my training, I was assigned a different sector of the city each week. This allowed me to get very familiar with our entire city.
It also allowed me a chance to choose which area, or areas I preferred to work in.
It must have been during my seventh or eighth month, I was on patrol, when I spotted a car parked just off the road, with its emergency flashers on, so I stopped to see if I could help this stranded driver.
As I got out of my patrol car, I could see the young lady talking on her cell phone, trying, I guess, to get help.
Walking up to the driver's side window, I got quite a shock.
The driver was Brenda Gibson, my old baby sitter.
"Pardon me, Miss, do you need some assistance?" I asked.
Getting out of her car, with just a glance my way, she just shook her head. saying the old beater just up and quit.