The Return

It was almost midnight when I trudged up the steps at home with Sergeant Meyer, I was greeted by Mrs Pye my tenant, perpetually in her bathrobe old fashioned tic-toc wristwatch on a bony wrist protruding from the fluffy sleeve. I was so tired I couldn't resist telling her that "Mrs Pye, the only time I ever saw you dressed up to leave this house was the day Jerry and I got married. Didn't you wear a gown to my wedding in a bar?"

Though old Mrs Pye was keen of wit in her retort, "You're forgetting the closing at the bank when I sold the house to you and Jerry."

"Those were happier times," I declared with a sigh. When political tumult led to economic collapse, the politicians invented National Service to reduce unemployment extending the net on unemployed people under the age of 40. "When my husband Jerry and I were drafted into National Service, Jerry was shipped out but, thanks to Sergeant Meyers," Looking at Sergeant Meyers with a tired smile, I patted Meyers on the back, "I drew a local assignment to the Induction Center, processing other inductees."

Sergeant Meyers, I mused, was much like my husband Jerry. Both were wheeler -- dealers capable of navigating the swells and troths in the hurricane surf of the military system, often outsmarting themselves in the process. Both were firmly convinced of their own infallibility.

Entranced by his agenda, Jerry, reporting in for induction with me, had hoped to place high enough to be qualified for police services so that he would be assigned locally and allowed to live at home. He turned down re-enlistment in the Marine Corps at his former grade. Turning down the Corps forced Jerry to compete what he could have obtained for the asking. Might he have lost his stripes in the process?

Unfortunately, at the time that Jerry ended up on a deuce-n-half headed back to the marine corps, I knew so little about the system. In those early days, I hadn't mastered the art of profligate cursing or the alphabet soup of mil-speak vocabulary. I could not have saved him from his own egotism.

At the Induction Center, where I met Sergeant Meyers, I had qualified for quasi-military Service Support, a local assignment and permission to live at home. Shepherding me through adjustment to quasi-military life in Service Support, Meyers had become a tenant in my house and my roommate. She volunteered to accompany me on the Survival, Escape and Evasion test, the final hurdle to leap before our release from active duty and return to school for studies toward an advanced degree in Industrial Psychology.

Back home, a look of confusion spread across Mrs Pye's face. "You've been gone for a little over a week," Mrs Pye questioned, "Wasn't it?"

"It was a quite a bit longer." I thought aloud, "I don't think you've kept pace. Actually, quite some weeks have flashed by since Sergeant Meyers and I left for the Survival, Escape and Evasion Problem," noticing the confusion on Mrs Pye's face, I corrected myself, "ah exercise."

Service Support adopted much mil-speak from the Armed Forces. An exercise was called a problem as if it were a mathematical problem which had to be analyzed and resolved. "Anyway, Meyers and I have been gone several weeks," I advised Mrs Pye.

"That long?" Mrs Pye questioned.

"Time flies, Mrs Pye, Meyers and I left several weeks ago, not really knowing when we'd return," I replied, "But I must count my blessings -- a hometown local assignment, permission to live in my home, not crammed in with other women. Other than missing Jerry, I have few complaints. For the most part it's been like a job, get up, go to work, come home. You might say a few weeks away is a minor inconvenience."

Zero -- dark thirty 20 hours ago, in the communal shower at the Reception Center, the Center's female Marine Commandant returned my white frock, the HHS uniform and presented me with a fresh pair of white boxers, donated by a thin waisted male and a razor. "Most women feel cleaner when they're hairless from the tip of the nose to the nails of her toes."

As Captain and I showered and shaved together, Captain observed, "The tower of Babel couldn't have invented a better multi-purposed -- one -- size -- fits -- all," Captain chuckled, "exercise: a survival -- escape and evasion exercise for quasi -- military components; a psycho drama for Health (HHS) services."

I chuckled. Taken in the Health Services facility, Sergeant Meyers so violently resisted, she had to be stripped naked and housed in a padded cell. However, within days of capture, the HHS Center director offered Sergeant Meyers control over a program to train HHS personnel to whip raw inductees, rejected as shirkers by the other services into shape. The appeal was direct and deferential: "I have been handed a monumental task and limited time to accomplish it. I need a good drill sergeant to train HHS cadre how to motivate the dregs the Induction Centers send Health Services."

Having been assigned overall responsibility and power over Health Services, HHS, personnel in the program, last night, Meyers could not be persuaded to join me when opportunity presented to escape confinement at the HHS by walking out an exit left unguarded. Today, I would return to recover Sergeant Meyers whom I left behind.

Only 18 hours before Meyers and I regained the sanctity of my home, I, dressed in the HHS uniform, a white frock and booties, stood on the loading dock outside the Reception Center. Ostensibly, assigned as the assistant driver on a shipment of rejects to Health Services (HHS) facility, I, watching the giddy rejects lined up ready to depart. In the presence of the Reception Center's female marine captain in command, I vowed I would not fail to recover Sergeant Meyers.

"Going back for Meyers," Captain reminded me, "presents significant risks for you in reentering the problem. Health Services (HHS) has requested your transfer. If that request goes through before you return her to receive a discharge. You still owe the 10 years you committed to in order to get funding to get degree, but lose the release from active service to attend school to obtain the degree."

"I understand the risks," I acknowledged, "I can't leave Meyers behind."

"Spoken like a true Marine," Captain replied, "which you're not -- at the moment."

"Your request to transfer me to the corps may gum up the works," I expressed hope that the military might trip on its over bureaucratic procedures, "long enough to accomplish my mission."

Smiling the Reception Center's commander, affectionately patted me on the shoulder with the warning, "Health Services HHS has duped Meyers into take charge of an impossible mission, the very type of assignment dear to Meyers' heart, accomplishing the virtually impossible by actually training this refuse."

The cargo, all rejects shipped naked wrists cable tied, from the Induction and Reception center where I was assigned as a Service Support Specialist. "Almost all rejects," the Captain snickered, "simply refused to cooperate in classification. So, Warbler, the rejects go to it."

"And what will I find at the HHS facility when I deliver the rejects?" I asked.

"The HHS problem, rumor control postulates, tests endurance: how long Meyers and the people placed under her will remain true to the task after HHS leadership echelon departs and the checkpoint cease to interdict deserters," Captain explained.

"It's all staged?" I asked.

"Staged without a script! The problem is, Warbler," Captain looked me in the eye, "the pure formlessness of a psychodrama. It has no set time limit. There is no script behind it. The problem continues as long as some test subjects continue to play a role. That could theoretically go on forever. It's hard to know all the hidden snares and traps until you experience them. Do the authors of The Problem, even know all the hidden hurdles you must overcome?"

While center personnel assisted the rejects board an open truck, the rejects chanted, "On the back of a deuce -- n -- half // sent on our way// caught up in the labor draft // stripped, tested and inspected // found unequal to the task // now placed on display."

"Rejected, but not very dejected, ma'am," I noted.

"About these rejects, I care nothing," Captain opined, "They are of no value to us. They're HHS property now. If Health Services wants them for a psychodrama, I've done all I can to save these rejects, being shipped today, from a scourging of their minds."

"Ma'am, an open truck?" I questioned.

"Starts with that, Warbler. Orders from HHS, Warbler," the Captain replied, "I've warned these people several times during their week here. `You might find HHS has its way of dealing with people regarded as unwilling to perform duties in hospitals and nursing homes. With regard to Sergeant Meyer's situation, I wish I could give you something more tangible than the expression, 'Tempus Fugit.'"

"If the expression strikes at Meyer's innermost fear, Ma'am," I assured the Captain, "it should shock Sergeant Meyers back to reality."

"Warbler, when I questioned Meyer's interest in you," Captain, laying a hand on my shoulders, replied, "Meyers expects two things: she wants a kid and to get a degree and qualify for a commission. Her bio clock is running out. Meyers would prefer to imagine the corps issued you to her for such purpose."

"My work in a Fertility clinic, before the economic eh -- adjustment," I replied, "dealt little with human resource management. My high-sounding title facility Industrial Psychologist disguised monitoring the goings and comings of donors satisfied and the departure of the données fertilized."

"So `Temps Fugit,'" Captain, chuckling, replied, "is an ill-defined key, but the message must pass like a dog whistle over the heads of any who would interdict your mission to set Meyers free."

"Agreed, ma'am, anything tangible, written orders, would be recovered on a search," I reminded her, "I can't count on being able to bluff or bully my way through into the HHS activity at the Hospital."

"What you have here is an interesting problem in management, Warbler," Captain observed.

"Fertile grounds for my thesis," I shook my head.

"Good luck, Warbler," patting me on the back as I climbed into the cab of the deuce-n-half, Captain ordered, "but this time, your orders are to return with or without Sergeant Meyers. I can't lose two people. It'd look bad on my record."

Safely home, passing Mrs Pye, on the stairway leading to my rooms upstairs at my home, I paused to think aloud over my triumph, "Today, there have been times when it was doubtful whether I'd earn my release to return to school to obtain my Doctorate in Industrial Psychology."

Glancing at the date on her watch, Mrs Pye announced in a tired voice, "So it more than was two -- three weeks! What a shock! Once you retire you lose touch with a world run by the clock."

"Time marched on while you slept, but, why worry? As long as you pay your rent, your place is securely set," I reminded her, "and no swat team drags you out frightfully to plant you in old age home hell, manned by people forced to serve delightfully as Humanitarian Services personnel" I added sarcastically, "-- Oh, all this is designed for your own good. Other people always know best."

Suddenly, I encountered an unusual experience -- a mind link, a non-verbal communication, perhaps. I looked at Mrs Pye and she at me and we exchanged the same thought at the same time. It was a vivid image of police breaking down her door, rifling through her possessions, stealing her valuables, dragging her bodily from her home, plunking her in an old age home, where she's forcibly stripped naked and strapped to a gurney for a medical exam, wristband stolen by the examining nurse and humiliated by being placed on display for student nurses giggling and chatting about weekend plans.

I could read her thoughts. Could she read mine?

I had been forced to strip for a search when I was first taken captive in the hospital basement of a Health Services (HHS) Hospital and again upon my return there, this morning. Guided by Misty, the HHS person who acted as part of the intake team, I led the rejects from the Reception Center into large unfinished windowless room in the basement of the Hospital where the rejects would be held. Cable ties cut, the rejects were bid to sit on the concrete floor and await further instructions.

As Misty and I closed the gate, I commented, "An unguarded dungeon without locks?"

There was no response. Leading me through an unfurnished concrete surfaced corridor lit by dangling pipes hung from the ceiling, Misty opened a steel door. We entered a waiting room. I had been held here when I was captured a couple of weeks ago.

Finished with a drop ceiling overhead panel lighting which cast its blinding light on freshly polished white tiled floor, the waiting area boasted of a black leather sofa, the size of a love seat. Pointing to a plexiglass window where a receptionist would be able to buzz us in, Misty declared, "You know what has to happen if you intend to enter the facility. All your clothes have to come off."

"You're wearing most of my clothes, my bra, my panties and my black boots," I suggested, "We'll strip together and then go under the shower." I pointed to the Plexiglass window. Beyond the unmanned receptionist station to the immediate left of an elevated podium and a wall with two palm prints painted at the 4-foot level lie a shower head, open to view. "inviting isn't it?"

"Amy, you slay me," Misty acknowledged in her cheery voice, "no need to be bashful. I've seen all your amazing offerings before."

Which was worse intrusion on your person, I mused. Was it one who intentionally treated you as a thing, as you stood there naked helplessly watching your stern - faced adversary, a total stranger pull at the seams of your clothing, impassively but with a smirk at the corner of her lips, as you stood helplessly by fearing your vulnerability to violation of bodily integrity? Or would it be cute melon head, inoffencive freckle faced Misty? Her sweet voice and disarming manner could make a game out of coaxing you out of your clothing.

Did Mrs Pyle laughing subverbally chide me, "You're truly suited to study Psychology. You already talk in psychobabble like a real psychologist."

As Mrs Pye cast an enigmatic smile at me, I recalled my husband's Jerry's praise for my hidden talent to read minds and carry -- on subverbal conversations. "In the Marine Corps," Jerry exclaimed, "I learned to trust my instincts. From the very moment we met, my instincts told me that you could always read my mind."

"Jerry," I reminded him, "You wandered in on me from your rooms. You were looking for a bar of soap to take a shower on a hot afternoon. I was naked and you had a towel wrapped around your waist. It wasn't hard to figure out why our instincts told us to make haste."

"You cast a spell," Jerry assured me.

With Mrs Pye in the foyer of my house, I spoke aloud to break the silent spell, "There's no end," I sighed, "to the fucking over you get from someone who thinks they're doing good these. Someone up to no -- good gets what they want and leaves you alone. Do-gooders can keep fucking you basking in the after -- glow of their own moral superiority."

Raising her penciled in eyebrows, Mrs Pye acknowledged the broadened vocabulary I had picked up since getting my call up. Which loss of femininity was harder to accept? Women cursing and swearing, neither giving nor taking offense; calling each other by their last names; openly bragging about their sexual prowess?

With the good grace to keep her personal life private, Mrs Pye was not immune from boasting, "Fortunately, I was smart enough to firm up the permanency my arrangement in this house before the crisis hit." I chuckled. Mrs Pye claimed undeserved credit for Jerry's ingenuity.

Politely nodding, declining to challenge Mrs Pye's assertion, I turned to Sergeant Meyers, "Sweetie, you look as haggard as your uniform. You've been through an ordeal. Get some rest." Mrs Pye's eyes widened when I planted a kiss on Meyer's neck and whispered, "Wait up. I'll join you."

"Right now," a tired Sergeant Meyers grumbled, "My standing order: let's strip off these uniforms P.D.Q. and stand under the shower for precious moments together and wash these past few weeks off with fragrant shampoo." Throwing me a smile, an exhausted Sergeant Meyers continued the climb up the stairs to my rooms on the second floor. Eyes narrowed following Sergeant Meyers, the usual stiff creases of her smart brown marine uniform somewhat smoothed, clinging to the rail to steady her stocky frame as Meyers moved upstairs.

Meyer's uniform symbolized power, her power.

In the waiting room at the HHS facility in the basement of the hospital, I kicked off the simple foot gear, the HHS booties, lifted the shift over my head and dropped the boxers. Misty held up my boxers and looked at them skeptically. "What a difference a day makes! Correct fit," Misty noted skeptically, "these aren't the ones you left here covering your cute little bum?" Casting aside the boxers, Misty playfully slapped my bottom.

"Reception Center provided them," I replied, "when I drew the mission to escort refuse which washed out at the Reception Center here to HHS."

"The HHS experiment in progress, never having foreseen, the return of a releasee, once having been freed," Misty thought aloud. "That's insane! Can you explain?"

"Orders," I replied, "Sweet Misty, orders."

"Orders?" Misty laughed, "That sounds too military for you."

"More like my friend Sergeant Meyers," I suggested.

"You were always so much more cooperative than that little bulldog Sergeant Meyers," Misty opened the door and beckoned to me to lean against the wall. "It took a half dozen strapping male orderlies to subdue her when we demanded she remove her clothes. Only threatening to cut up her uniform and burn it coaxed her out of it. But you, told to strip, you do what you're told and present unclothed."

"It feels good to feel the cool air on my tits. The coarse fabric of the HHS shift off," I declared as I massaged my tits, "that shift rubs my nips."

Safely home, I held the banister as I watched Meyers retreat upstairs.

"Darling, you sure, you're OK, sweetie?" Mrs Pye, the grimace fading from her face, inquired solicitously.

"Actually, Mrs Pye," I answered, "I hope among us girls I can candidly tell you that the fabric of this shift irritates my nipples. During the Survival -- Escape -- Evasion Exercise," I snickered, "I lost my bra."

"Lost your bra?" Mrs Pye, taken aback, stared at my breasts.

"When I was taken as part of the Survival Escape and Evasion test," I related my experience, "Misty, the woman from Health Services (HHS) who strip -- searched me stole my bra. The HHS uniform is a unisex uniform which comes without a bra. Men drafted into HHS don't wear bras."

"Equality has absurdities all its own," Mrs Pye quipped.

"Most interesting part," I reported, "came when Meyers was put in charge of training HHS cadre, Misty had to strip to join the cadre in training. As I shed my coarse Humanitarian Services frock and massaged my nipples rubbed raw by the fabric, I congratulated Missy, `My bra, hmm, it looks so much better on you than on me.'"

At the HHS facility, I chuckled at the embarrassment which reddened Missy's face. "Fortunes of war. It's a prize you get to keep," I chuckled. Hanging our frocks on a peg on the wall, I unhooked her -- eh my -- bra and removed it, suggesting her, "Let your boobs swing naturally. Now," I paused, "Let's run."

As we ran to -- and -- fro down the full length of the floor, the naked people sitting around on the floor barely turned their heads to pay us any notice.

In the safety of my home, Mrs Pye exclaimed, "My, you have been through quite the ordeal!"