It was a chance she had taken for love.
Love. She thought it was love when she swallowed his cum on their wedding night. She doubted it as soon as he laughed at her and refused to touch her afterwards.
"Go brush your teeth. I can't kiss you after you've had my boner in your mouth. God. How dumb are you?" She couldn't even remember why she liked him. He had treated her well for a few weeks of their relationship again -- and the history was as addictive as cocaine. You know to avoid it. But then you're living on it again.
After eloping and three months of bullshit from her sailor husband, Jodie was ready to take her bruised ego and starving self-esteem back to the Midwest. To return to Illinois -- to friends and family who thought of her beyond penis-receptical.
Her husband, Jim, had been an on-again, off-again lover. He treated her well for a few months when they reunited. In an effort to advance the relationship, Jodie married Jim and moved into San Diego military housing.
It took only a few days for Jim to change. He didn't want to be a friend or husband, he wanted to be a commander. Demanding her to submit to his wants. Like she was a doting wife of 1955 or a woman in the Mideast.
"Fuck this. I'm too young for this. I'm not his property," she thought
She had just turned 21. She hoped he would give her one night of love. Take her dancing, dance closely with her, make her feel alive, make love to her passionately.
He hadn't. He came home, watched television, and asked why she was pouting midway through JAG.
"It's my birthday," she said.
"I know it's your birthday. Why are you crying? Getting old?"
"I was hoping for a card or a gift or something," she explained.
He threw a couch pillow at her.
"Fuck you. There's your card, Jodie. I married you -- what else do you want? Jesus Christ! Do you know how many girls would loved to be with me? You're just lucky I got you out of Illinois. You couldn't have done it without me. So there, there's your card: 'Be happy I brought your dumb birthday ass with me.'"
"You're an asshole."
"Shut up. Be happy you have me. Your boyfriends were all idiots. I'm the best you could ever do -- and don't every fucking forget that. Be happy I settled for your stupid cunt. Go bake a fucking cake."
Jodie wept in bed that night. Jim walked in their bedroom, pulled off her panties and fucked her as best he could without foreplay, without tenderness. It wasn't rape, but it wasn't much better either. His cock, hardened by watching the JAG officer, pushed into her body a half-dozen times like a malfunctioning piston. Sometimes thrusting inside partially, sometimes completely missing any spot of sense. Always missing the void he needed to fill emotionally and physically. She felt ripped-off that her best sex life after her marriage consisted of her own fingers in the shower. Jodie had hoped those experiences would have been alleviated by a wedding. Instead, she now looked forward to times where she could masturbate alone -- away from Jim.
"Wifely duties," he spoke in her ear. "You really need to grow bigger tits," Jim commented as he slumped into her body. "Either you need to grow them, have your daddy buy them, or deal with the fact that I'm going to go fuck another woman who has bigger tits," he said. He came within a minute, without passion, without love.
She bit her lip in anger, shame and sorrow. Jodie tried to talk with him before in vain. A darkness had settled inside her for six weeks -- but recently she'd received letters from a few old friends that had made her smile. Words on a page made her feel more alive than Jim. Jodie spent an hour at the San Diego Public Library daily chatting with her Illinois friends -- and knew her Cali days were numbered. She'd enjoyed conversations with a friend-of-a-friend. He made her smile. Adam worked as a photojournalist and covered Midwest University football. He thought she could help him. Her older sister offered her a room in Uniden, Illinois -- where the college was located. She worked in the admission's office.
So she had a job waiting and could easily return to college. She hated planes, so she had priced trains back to Illinois.
Her birthday was Jim's last chance. Within a minute of his bland climax, he was snoring like a drunk sailor who just fucked a whore. In the morning, his ship left for a six day cruise -- and she would leave too.
So many of her dreams in the past 12 weeks ended with the sun setting on her -- leaving her cold and feeling alone, stranded. But this night, the sun rose in her dreams -- the warmth enveloping her, and friends surrounded her with hugs and smiles. Midway in her sleep, the frown of her lips was replaced with a grin.
***
After he left, she began packing her two bags and confirmed a train ticket back to St. Louis. Her emotions rumbled like a train in mountains -- raging through heights of anger and disappointment; then throttling down with inclines of hope and anticipation.
Moments before she was walking out the door, the mailman stopped by -- with two bills and a wrapped package from Adam in Uniden, Illinois.
"What the?" she questioned aloud, tearing at the corner to see the box of a six inch silver-bullet dildo. Along with it came a note. "--Because we all need our pleasures. Take care of yourself when nobody else will. ;) adam--"
She giggled at the idea, then packed it deep in her luggage. Adam's sense of humor was a bit obnoxious at times, but she wasn't sure if this was from his sense of humor or his sense she needed a sexual outlet.
In her years of masturbation, little more was needed than two fingers running around her clit like long distance runners -- evenly paced and determined. Until she reached her peak -- at which point the two fingers ran over her flesh like they were in a sprint until she climaxed in release. The idea floated around her mind now -- she hadn't experienced one passionate orgasm in California, and that seems to go against everything Californian. But she decided why break tradition.
Jodie put on her sunglasses and stepped into the daylight -- clouds of the coastal morning burning off in the serene warmth of San Diego. As her taxi drove, she rolled down her window and flipped off Naval Station San Diego as her husband's ship drifted away. She took comfort in the burning of the clouds, feeling it was a good omen.
***
She flipped through an Anne Rice paperback as the train rumbled down the tracks eastbound in the desert of southern California. It was a three day trip during which she would have little opportunity to clean up. She wasn't looking forward to the grudging, but knew that was the price for avoiding jet travel.
A loose T-shirt and loose khaki shorts tried to cling to her porcelain skin. She wore her shoulder length hair in a ponytail to keep from having to deal with it during travel. She wasn't looking for her soul mate. Sex hadn't been on her mind aside from the new toy and book.
Jodie lounged and looked to the brown and white sands. The novel's imagery of sexual abandon left her feeling a desire she hadn't in months. For real sex. Passionate, biting, muscle-stretching sex. Sex where each participant was there for the other. She closed her eyes momentarily, her body rhythmically bouncing with the train, and fell asleep with the book opened on her naked leg.
The warmth of the sun through her shirt and onto her 36A chest, and the steady thrusting against her ass through the railroad to her seat challenged Jodie's subconscious to consider ideas aside from sex. It lost that challenge as the 21-year-old imagined fucking again. Good sex. Passionate sex. She didn't know the person -- she couldn't see the face -- but it was bodies flexing together for pleasure. Hips rolling.
Her eyes rolled open as she neared climax between her legs, gasping for an inhalation of air -- shocked by the moment. The paperback fell to the floor and reawakened her to reality. A train. No sex.
In Jodie's section of chairs sat a girl she'd seen walk aboard but had lost track of since. "You okay?" the girl asked. She appeared to be about her age.
"Yes. Strange dream," she smiled with embarrassment sprinting from her wetness to her chest. Her nipples had hardened due to the adventures of her resting mind.
The girl reached down and picked up the novel, handing it to Jodie.
