The nerve wrenching sound of metal wheels grinding against steel tracks was almost drowned completely out by the long blast of the big diesel's horn.
Standing on the depot platform with my sweet little wife of only three months, it was a definite signal that for the next year, I would be thousands of miles away from her.
I could only describe us as rabbits that last day before the U.S. Army said I had to report to Ft. Dix, New Jersey for deployment to Germany. We made love three times that morning and must have kissed goodbye a hundred times before this last passionate embrace on the depot platform.
Grabbing my small personal bag from the dolly that carried my duffel bag along with other traveler's luggage, I blew her one more kiss and boarded the train.
Fast forwarding, I arrived and settled in to the routine of Army life in a strange country. My one and only sense of connection to home came with mail call and letters from Melissa. She wrote religiously and sometimes I recieved two or three letters a day.
On one occasion, she had written that my best friend Buck had just returned from Japan and had came over trying to find me. I made one of my rare phone calls that night (very expensive) to give her a number that Buck could reach me.
The very next night, Buck called and we had about an hour long conversation. He had loved Japan and while there, he had bought a lot of camera equipment, lenses, etc. that would have cost a fortune in the United States.
I casually suggested that he could take some pictures of Melissa for me and maybe she could take some of him to send me.
About two weeks later, I recieved a small package with "Photo's...Do Not Bend" written on the outside.
Back in the barracks that evening, I tore into the envelope and found about thirty photographs. There were several of Melissa dressed in blue jeans and a pullover sitting on a park bench and a couple of her feeding the ducks in the park pond. There were two of Buck making his muscle man pose and then one final picture that made me a little curious.
In it, Melissa was going up the stairs, dressed only in her little green negligee (which had turned me on many times) swinging a bottle of wine in her right hand.
Even at the risk of seeming jealous or untrusting, I made a point of asking her about the picture in our next phone conversation.
"Oh, honey," she laughed. "Don't worry about that. Buck came over one night and I told him I wasn't dressed and had to go upstairs to put something on. He just couldn't resist snapping that picture, but it was all innocent."
For the next few days, I had so many mixed emotions. I was a little supicious, a little angry and a lot turned on. Turned on? This was something new. I was actually excited about some guy seeing my wife almost nude?
In my next letter to Melissa, I managed to insert a little paragraph that said something like..."Oh yeah, that pic of you in the nightie really turned me on. Maybe you could send me a few more like that."
In her next letter, she expressed some unclarity about what I was asking her to do.
"Do you want me to ask Buck to take naughty pictures of me to send you?" She asked. "I don't know if I can do that."
I was really beginning to get aroused now, so I placed a call that night. I explained that I really missed our sex and that if I couldn't trust Buck, who could I trust.
"Just do a few naughty things, nothing drastic," I told her. Just something to remind me how much I missed her beautiful body.
Our conversation ended with her telling me I should call Buck and let him know what I wanted because she didn't know how to approach him about this.
I'll admit, I became a little hesitant about doing that but about a half hour later, I placed the call to Buck.
