[This story contains sex, but it isn't just about sex. It contains characters who were in the military, but the story isn't about war. It contains violence, but isn't about violence. Two of the female characters in the story were raped and the story isn't about rape. It is about honor, duty, respect and love. As with all the stories I submit your votes and comments/feedback are welcome.
If you want answers to the questions you might leave, please leave me a way to respond to you personally. I probably won't respond publically to your question(s) especially if you ask them as Anon..]
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One of my most persistent memories of time with my Dad involved Memorial Day Weekend. My Dad was career military. Whatever it was he did on active duty had him in harm's way often and he was gone a lot, but when he was home on Memorial Day Weekend we, he and I, went to the veterans cemetery and put flags in front of the markers for the men he had known.
He had me get dressed up, had me get a fresh haircut the Friday before and my shoes shined like his boots. I carried a backpack full of flags and he planted them and told me about each of the men he honored. It was an important ritual for my Dad and became an important ritual for me. By the time I was twelve I could spit shine my shoes so they shined like his boots. My gig line was always straight, not just when Dad was home, but always.
When I was thirteen Mom and I visited Dad in a military hospital. He'd been shot twice and was healing. We visited him three times while he was in the hospital. Each time Mom cried and begged him to quit the Army. Each time he said, "You knew who I was when you married me. I retire in six more years. Pick a spot where you want us to live. When they release me from here, we'll go house hunting."
She picked Portland Oregon. The three of us went there and Dad bought her the house she wanted. I made new friends, Mom seemed happier for a while and Dad went away again. That time he was gone seven months, back a month and gone for three months.
The summer I turned eighteen he was home all summer with us. We camped, went fishing, took car trips and had a great summer. It wasn't until that summer that I discovered some of what being a career soldier had cost my Dad. Up until that summer I'd never seen him without a shirt. If we went swimming he wore trunks and a t-shirt. That summer, on one of our hikes, when Mom stayed at home, we found a hot springs and Dad wanted to soak for a while.
We stripped down and went in. When Dad took off his shirt I counted eleven scars on his back. Eleven scars from being shot! As we soaked I saw other scars on his chest and legs. I started to ask about them and he said, "They are a price some men have to pay so the people we love can be safe. I can't talk about how I got these scars, so don't ask. The reason I always wear a shirt around your Mom is that the scars upset her."
At the end of that summer Dad shipped out again and I started my senior year of high school. In November we got a letter from Dad telling us he'd be home for Christmas. Mom seemed happy about him being home for Christmas and she seemed sad, too. I asked her about that and she told me that she and Dad had been having problems for a while and she wasn't sure they'd stay together after Dad retired. Over the next two weeks I got Mom to talk more and more about the problems and her concerns. One night she made lasagna for dinner and opened a bottle of wine. She even gave me half a glass. By nine o'clock she had finished the bottle. She told me more than I ever wanted to know about their relationship.
While she was pregnant with me Dad got shot up pretty badly. She stayed on the Army base near the hospital and sat near Dad for three weeks. She saw the raw wounds on his body and the pain Dad was in. By the time I was born she had made some decisions. One was that she couldn't or wouldn't ever have another child with him. Another was that she never wanted to see those scars again.
Dad was away again when I was born. She wrote him about my birth and told him that she had her tubes tied. He offered her a divorce and she said she didn't believe in divorce. She wanted them to stay together, for my sake.
She told me that for five years after I was born they didn't have sex. Then, when they did finally have sex, she made sure it was in the dark. I didn't need or want to know all the details. I finally got her into her bedroom and into her bed. I cleaned up the kitchen and went to my own bed, but I didn't sleep. I thought about them during the times we were all together. She never held his hand. They didn't kiss except when he first got home after a deployment, he got one kiss. I remembered hearing him say "I love you" to her often. Her response was usually, "Yeah, me too."
I thought all night about what I was supposed to do with what Mom had told me.
The next day I was at school and I was called to the office. Mr. Connors, the Principal, took me into his office where I saw two men in Army uniforms: a Captain and a Master Sergeant. I instantly knew Dad was dead.
The Captain told me whatever he told me and they took me home. Mom was in her bedroom crying when I got home. We spent the next three days in a daze, crying, hurting and bewildered. I missed the rest of that week at school. The Army got Dad's body home, but it took two weeks. They never told us where he was when he was killed or what he was doing. We never saw the body, just the casket.
There was a funeral and lots of men and women in uniform attended. Lots of people from the community attended and some strangers as well. Most of them were people I didn't know, but from what the ones who spoke to me said I knew they were Dad's friends. My girl friend, Maria, stood next to me that day. She didn't say much, but for a lot of the day I felt like if she wasn't there I might have collapsed. Mom's brother and sister stayed with us for the three days around the funeral and they stood by her the day of the funeral.
A week later all the military people were gone, Mom's brother was back in Seattle, her sister was back on the family farm in Idaho and my girl friend was still right beside me.
Maria showed up at our house at just before eight in the morning and stayed until almost ten each night. She helped both Mom and me with whatever needed doing and when I sat on the porch swing or the couch she sat with me, held my hand or sat in my lap.
We went back to school where people didn't know what to say to us, so they left us alone. Maria and I were isolated. I'm not sure I even noticed for that first week back. That Friday when we left school Maria said, "Can we stop by my house on the way home?"
I was driving Mom's car and made a left turn at the light as the answer. I parked in her driveway and she said, "Don't move. I'll be right back."
Two minutes later she and a backpack were back in the car and she said, "Let's go home." The backpack had clothes and girl supplies in it. When we got home she took the backpack into my bedroom and bathroom and she moved in. The three of us spent the evening together acting like we were watching TV and studying. At ten that night we both kissed Mom goodnight and went to my room.
As we walked down the hall to my bedroom I asked, "What are you doing?"
She asked, "Do you love me?"
"Yeah. I do."
"Do you like holding my hand? Having me next to you all the time?"
"Yeah, I do."
"Last night I was at home, in my bed and I realized again that where I belong is next to you. So, here I am. I want to sleep next to you. I want to wake up and kiss you."
"Sex?" I asked.
"Tonight I just want to be with you. I want to go to sleep holding you and having you holding me. There's no hurry to have sex. I'm your woman. You'll be as honorable a man as your Dad was, and I'll be right here beside you for the rest of my life."
I wondered why Mom had let us kiss her goodnight and didn't stop us from going to bed together. I didn't wonder enough to go back and ask her.
Two eighteen-year-olds got undressed and into bed for the first time, together, and we didn't have sex. We kissed some and Maria held my penis for a while, while I held her breasts, but we didn't do it.
Saturday morning we woke up together and I was still holding her breast in my hand. She smiled and asked, "Like how that feels?" I nodded.
