Capt David McCulloch woke up to the sound of his alarm. It was 5:30AM on this Friday, and he had a busy day ahead, and it would also be a long day of travel.
As an Air Force logistics officer, this wasn't unusual. He'd been serving in Germany for the last 3 years, and the country was like a gift he'd been given with a big bow on it. He was actually stationed at Spandahlem, about 15 minutes from Luxembourg, but today was going to take him to the Fürstenfeldbruck German air base in Bavaria, and about 30 km west of Munich. The base was the location of the Air Force Officers school, but the base was slated to be closed.
David was going to be busy with the schools relocation. Having been through a number of base closures and relocations before, his expertise was one the German Air Force was grateful to have, and he knew quite a few of his Luftwaffe contemporaries there. His mission was to make this transition effective for the newly located school, was a nice international gesture of good will between the US and Germany, but he was also charged with mitigating the impact to those that were going to be affected, and there was a lot of apprehension about what the effects were going to be.
He knew there was going to be some socializing involved, and the inclusion of a trip to the local Gasthaus, with some fine Bavarian beer was usually in order. It was a trip he was looking forward to, but knew it was going to be a little taxing as well.
David's friend Carol Gersteiner was a longtime friend from college, and had been working as a civilian in the Personnel division of the Army at Heidelberg. He thought he might get a chance to stay over after his day was done and he was on the way home again, as he'd already hit a deer when driving at night, and although it was in the middle of August and still hot out, he didn't look forward to seeing the deer in the headlights on a backcountry German road in the middle of the night.
It had been months since he'd seen her, but it was always good food and she wasn't bad to look at either. He'd had urges for her back in college, but either one or the other of them seemed to have someone of interest at the time, and it had never gotten any further than good friends. She had a small apartment, and it was on the way, it was going to be a lot more leisurely if he stayed the Friday night and finished the drive Saturday morning. So David continued to make plans for his trip, and made the call to Carol to arrange for staying the night.
She reminded him that it was a one bedroom, but she'd be glad to give David a sheet and the couch. Could be worse, he thought. She sounded glad to be getting to see him, and he likewise looked forward to this part of his trip.
The drive to the meeting went by quickly, as David loved the autobahn, and had adapted well to driving at the autobahn speeds. Arriving well before time to start the days work, he was treated to breakfast and coffee, and lots of good friendly conversation. The group settled in to the dealings of how to continue operations while in the process of moving, and making decisions about what to move first and other such concerns.
The lunch visit was as he'd expected, to the local gasthaus, with a nice schnitzel and a fine Bavarian beer. This was heaven, and he wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve it, but he wasn't going to question his good fortune. The time went by fairly quickly, and by about 5:00PM, they were wrapping up. David declined the dinner invite this time, as he was anxious to get some of Carol's cooking, she'd promised him some venison and cranberries, and he figured it was going to be a good meal with good company, and at least a way of getting back at Bambi for having messed up his car.
David was tired for the trip to Heidelberg, but knew the drive here was shorter than all the way back to Spangdahlem, and he was going to have a nice dinner. Carol always had a bottle of Jägermeister on hand, and at the end of the day, it would be good to settle back with a shot or two.
David parked on the parkplatz out in front as he arrived, and walked up to the door. Carol had been watching for him, and greeted him at the door with a big hug, and welcomed him in. She was still the 5'2" athletic girl he'd known in college, and the short shorts and sports bra look was still a good one for her.
He was still in his Class A dress uniform, standard for the formalities of his job, but he was ready to be a little more relaxed for dinner.
She was a military brat, and had a thing for a man in uniform, especially those formal dress uniforms. He'd brought along a pair of blue jeans and a golf shirt to change into. He'd also brought his running shorts for bedtime, which were about the best he could do on short notice, considering he usually slept in the buff and didn't have any pajamas.
He went into the bathroom to change, which was straight through the bedroom.
She'd already been getting their feast ready, and it would only be a few more minutes till it was ready. And she did have that Jägermeister he'd been counting on, but before dinner was good too.
Carol had had a pretty easy week, an unusual occurrence for the personnel office during the summer, as they were normally busy with a lot of moves taking place during the summer when the weather was good, and families were more likely to be willing to move to new duty stations. David told her that was part of the work he was doing with the relocation too, and they compared notes for a few minutes on details of making moving and new jobs easier for their units. It was all fun conversation, because they both really enjoyed what they were doing, and shared this common interest.
The smell of the venison was really making David hungry now. Carol was standing by the stove, making final preparations of the venison steaks, as David stood behind her, admiring her work, and put his hands on her shoulders...
'That's smelling really good', he told her.
Carol was pretty good with the banter, and playfully replied, 'I knew you were coming, so I showered and put on a little perfume', and looked at him with the cute little smirk he'd seen her give when she was being smug.
David just lowered his head with a little smile, and looked at her with a grin... 'yeahhhh..!!', was all he could come up with.
She liked being able to do that to him, and she let out a little snortish giggle... 'Would you like a glass of Riesling, or something else to go with? The bottle's in the fridge, and the corkscrew's in that first drawer to your left', she commented. He grabbed a couple of green stem wine glasses, opened the bottle, and poured their glasses as she plated the venison and cranberries she'd promised. He hadn't had this in a while, and he was looking forward to sinking his teeth into this delightful special.