Ask Me Again

by E. J. Noyes

  Bec pointed with her free hand. “Turn up here.”

  I pulled in and parked where she indicated, and while Bec retrieved her gear from the trunk I examined the roof. The whistling was real. I’d heard it. I wasn’t imagining things. But the soft top seemed fine, not warped or bulging. Still, I’d arrange to have the car checked out.

  “Sabine? Are you ready?”

  “Yep. Let me take that.” I shouldered her gym bag and walked with her across the gravel parking lot toward the fields. There were three, and on each, groups of women had massed—some running slow laps around the outside, and others talking or stretching. The flood lights were coming to strength, the low buzz an uncomfortable background noise that made my teeth feel strange.

  Bec led me to a group of women in bright yellow and red striped jerseys the same as hers, and I stood awkwardly while they greeted one another. Most of them looked my way, but none acknowledged me with anything more than an appraising glance. I stood slightly to the side and behind Bec, suddenly aware of how out of place I was.

  This was another thing that’d crept up on me, a discomfort in my own skin. I felt like my body didn’t belong to me and I didn’t know what to do with my hands. They felt strange, as if they should be holding surgical instruments, or a weapon, or doing something productive the way they usually were. I tried putting them in my pockets, then crossing my arms and tucking my hands into my armpits. Eventually I just let them hang by my sides, wooden and useless.

  Bec tugged me forward and I smiled politely as she introduced me to the group of six women, whose names I knew I’d never remember. My girlfriend finished with a proud, “She only came home last night.”

  Baby Butch…uh, Charlie, stuck her hand out and as she shook mine vigorously, said, “Well! We were starting to think Becky made you up to stop Gayle from asking her out every week.”

  Becky? Nobody called Rebecca that. I forced another smile. “Actually I’m just an actress she hired.” Nice one, Sabine. Put a dollar in your think before you blurt stupid shit jar. Current balance? Somewhere in the millions.

  Bec laughed, the way she always did when I said something fatuous, and after a moment the other women joined in. They probably thought I was mentally deficient. Stocky Brunette turned to Bec and said, “So she’s been home for less than twenty-four hours and you dragged her out to watch your sorry ass, Granny? Thought you wouldn’t leave the bedroom for a week.”

  I ignored the suggestive comment and bristled at the nickname Granny. The rest of the team were about my age or younger, but Bec’s forty-five was nowhere near Granny. Bec seemed completely unconcerned by the comment and I told myself I was being sensitive and overbearing. Set it aside, Sabine, it’s not important.

  Blond Beanpole made no effort to hide her ogling. I bristled again when she drawled, “Christ have I been looking in the wrong places. I’m gonna get me an Army girl.”

  Even if I’d thought of a response, I wouldn’t have been able to get it out around the lump of annoyance in my throat. Bec’s soothing hand found my back, rubbing soft circles through my shirt. “If you ask nicely, Gayle, Sabine might be able to introduce you to a friend.” She drew me close and stretched up to kiss me, but I tilted my face away from her. And immediately realized my mistake.

  Though she didn’t say anything, I could see her surprise and the group went suddenly silent. My ears heated, and I forced myself to look up, to acknowledge the other women and what I’d just done. Squeezing Bec’s hand, begging her to understand my reaction, I explained, “Sorry. I keep forgetting Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is over now. It’s…just a force of habit.”

  The official abolition of DADT was barely three weeks ago, and obviously this was the first time we’d been out together since. In public Bec and I had never been physically affectionate and rarely touched, because you never knew who might see. But now there was no reason for that. We were free. And I suddenly felt the lightness of it like someone releasing a lead weight from around my ankle.

  I turned away from the group and their murmurs of acceptance, and took Bec’s face in my hands. Her skin was warm, soft and she held eye contact with me. Her expression was unreadable, but when I dipped my head and kissed her I didn’t need any help deciphering what she felt. I turned us slightly so my back was to the group, shielding her from their view, kissing her in a way that was not polite in company. And I didn’t care. Her hands came to my waist and she stretched up, pressing herself to me.

  Someone cleared their throat and Bec smiled against my lips before she pulled away. I stole another quick kiss and took her hand. Leaning down, I whispered in her ear, “Time to break those habits.”

  Chapter Four

  Rebecca

  Sabine woke me with a gentle shake and a not-so-gentle kiss that immediately chased away my sleepiness. I shoved the duvet aside and reached up to pull her back to bed but she carefully disengaged my arms from around her neck. Then I realized it was barely light and she was already dressed. She touched the tip of my nose with her forefinger. “Don’t get up, I’m just going out for a run. Didn’t want you to wake up and worry.”

  “How long will you be?”

  “An hour, tops.”

  I wanted to tell her maybe she didn’t need to go for a run, that she should climb back under the covers with me and go back to sleep. She just looked so tired, which was understandable given her long flight and the fact we hadn’t arrived home from Jana’s until well after midnight. But this tiredness seemed to go beyond jetlag and staying out late. Her hollow cheeks were even worse in person than they’d appeared during our video calls, and the ropey muscularity of her body had taken on a worrisome, almost unhealthy leanness. But she wasn’t running for fitness—she needed to quiet her gremlins.

  So I swallowed my words and used my fingertips to stroke a line from her temple to her chin. “Okay, I’ll wait until you get back to start breakfast.”

  “Sounds great.” Sabine turned her head to kiss my palm then loped out of the bedroom, leaving me to stare after her. I tried unsuccessfully to tamp down my worry. Stress and anxiety and guilt made her this way. It made her drive herself into the ground, both physically and emotionally, and nothing short of collapse or someone forcing her to rest would make her stop. That someone couldn’t be me, not anymore.

  I stretched under the sheet, groaning at the twinge in my hamstrings and the tightness of my lower back. I’d pushed myself harder than ever during the game the night before, and though we’d come away with a win to end the season, I was tired and stiff. And starting to feel like people were right when they said getting old sucked.

  In five years I would be on the other side of fifty, and Sabine would be almost forty-three. Regardless of her age, she’d probably never lose that childish, irreverent streak I loved so much. The one that even PTSD hadn’t squashed. The one she clung to even as her internal struggles threatened to break her.

  My hot rage burned at whoever was responsible for sending her back to a combat zone. There were so many other options, yet some desk general had deemed her fit for service in a place she shouldn’t have been. I knew it wasn’t unusual, men and women with PTSD were sent on active deployment all the time. In part, it explained the high rate of mental illness experienced by returned service personnel. But they weren’t my girlfriend.

  My anger simmered to an uncomfortable feeling I’d been unable to push aside since she’d left here all those months ago. The feeling that maybe Sabine hadn’t been entirely truthful with those who had determined her fitness. To be unfit was to fail in Sabine’s eyes and she would hide any indication of her mental struggle as much as she could.

  She returned after forty-five minutes and joined me in the kitchen where I was measuring coffee into the machine. In her arms was Titus who had finally relinquished his snippy aloofness at her lengthy abandonment of him. Sabine kissed the top of his head and murmured something I didn’t quite catch but sounded a lot like cooing endearments.

  I couldn’t help smil
ing. “Admit it, sweetheart. You missed the cat more than you missed me.”

  “Well…” she drew the word out, smiling widely.

  As I swatted at her she laughed, stepping deftly to the side. I started the coffee machine and turned around, lifting my hands behind me to rest against the edge of the countertop. “Sabine? About last night, at the game in front of everyone? I’m sorry, I just got excited. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “No, Bec, I’m sorry. It’s just ingrained after so many years.” She crouched down and poured the cat out of her arms.

  “I know.” I’d separated from the Army seven weeks after her accident, which had negated any chain of command issues as we began our relationship properly. But despite that, we weren’t openly affectionate in public because she was still on active duty, and someone might file a report against her for homosexual conduct.

  “But that’s all over and done with, so expect to be constantly grabbed and kissed senseless in public.”

  The thought sent a delicious tingle through my belly. “I look forward to it.”

  She stalked toward me, her full lips lifted in a lazy grin. “Maybe we need to practice, just to make sure we’ve got the mechanics down for when someone’s looking.” Sabine’s hot, still-sweaty body curved into mine, pressing me against the refrigerator.

  “Maybe,” I managed to choke out around my sudden arousal. This was her second day home, we still hadn’t had sex, and the anticipation was beginning to wear me down. After her first few gentle refusals I’d stopped trying to instigate it, fully aware that she would come to me when she was ready.

  Sabine leaned down, her eyes locked with mine as she came ever closer. But she didn’t kiss me. Rather, she lingered with her lips so close that I felt her breath whispering across mine. A thigh gently insinuated itself between my legs and pressed upward until I gasped sharply. Her hand snaked around my waist and pulled me even tighter against her.

  She kissed her way along my jaw and down my neck, gently moving my top aside with light fingers to expose skin so she could continue her journey of kisses along my collarbone.

  Every time I moved to bring our lips together, she’d carefully angle away, her lips finding another spot to kiss that wasn’t my mouth. Her thigh kept up its pressure until I gave in to the sensation and ground down on her. An unconscious moan slipped from my mouth and I felt, rather than heard her quick intake of breath.

  When Sabine was in the mood to tease, she was masterful. I’d be dangled over the precipice, then pulled back over and over until I felt I might come apart. Only when I finally gave in and begged her to let me come would she carry me to an exquisite climax. And then dive in to give me another. But she’d never withheld her lips from mine, never denied me kisses, and by doing so now she made me desperate for them.

  The anticipation had my nerves firing, imagining what would come after, where she would hold me against the counter or pull me to the floor and take me. Again, I tried to kiss her, but Sabine moved away so my lips landed at the edge of her mouth, and I could feel the smirk at my failed attempt. I gripped a handful of her hair in a light fist. “Kiss me, please,” I begged.

  She made a low rumble, a sound that wasn’t dismissal but certainly wasn’t one of acquiescence. And still, her lips skimmed everywhere but near my mouth.

  “Kiss me,” I demanded this time, my free hand coming to the back of her neck. When I pulled, she held firm, the muscle in her neck tight with resistance.

  “Tell me how much you want it, baby,” she whispered. “Tell me what you want to do to me…what you want me to do to you.”

  I was so needy and not too proud to do what she’d asked. “God, you tease,” I breathed. “I want you to kiss me. I want to get to my knees and lick you until you come in my mouth. I want you to bend me over the counter and fu—”

  She cut me off with a deep, open-mouthed kiss. Just as I’d asked. My hands went under her shirt, nails scratching lightly across her back, and when I stroked her tongue with mine the thigh between my legs jerked. The movement switched the tempo of my arousal from a pleasant moderato to a hard-to-ignore allegro. I grasped the bottom of her tee and pulled it up over her stomach, fingers skimming her belly before dipping to the waistband of her running pants and slipping inside.

  Before I found what I wanted, Sabine pulled away, her breathing quick and shallow and her dark eyes stormy. I followed, leaning forward to reclaim her lips but she moved back again, just a fraction, and I read her reaction immediately. It was a stop sign, loud and clear. I felt that part of her wanted this as much as I did but she still wasn’t ready, mentally or emotionally or whatever it was she needed. The disappointment was so acute my hand came to my breasts as though I could actually push the feeling aside.

  After so long without her, I ached for her touch, but I couldn’t force it. The passivity went against my every instinct, but I knew why she was withdrawn and I also knew she would initiate intimacy when she was comfortable. After her accident she’d been exactly the same—frightened she wasn’t ready and pulling away whenever things became heated. Then one day, her barriers had fallen and she’d come to me.

  Knowing what I had to do, what she needed, didn’t make it any easier to accept. Sex was one of our languages and I’d felt like something had been missing in all our communication over the months apart. Even though I knew she was struggling and it wasn’t her fault and it wasn’t permanent, I still felt cheated. And I was disgusted with myself for feeling that way, for selfishly wanting even when I knew she was pulling away.

  Sabine buried her face in my hair. “I’m so sorry, Bec.” Her voice was tight, the apology almost strangled. “I’m trying.”

  My hands soothed her along with my words. “I know, sweetheart and it’s okay, really.” I stretched up and kissed her softly. “Why don’t you go shower and I’ll have breakfast ready when you come back.”

  After I heard her light steps along the hallway upstairs, I began to dig out things for breakfast. Underneath the layer of post-deployment awkwardness, I could feel her there, just waiting to thaw a little. This dynamic was different, strange and not one I’d ever had with her, not even when I was her boss. I rested my thighs against the cabinets, palms flat on the countertop and tried to calm myself down.

  * * *

  After lingering over breakfast, we decided on a visit to the Constitution Gardens and Memorials. Sabine wanted grass and trees and water, somewhere that was as far from the stark, rugged beauty of Afghanistan as she could be. I would have done anything she’d asked, as long as I could be with her.

  Because she insisted on driving instead of taking Metro, heavy traffic stretched the trip by an extra fifteen minutes. Then it took almost twenty minutes of looping around the streets before she found a parking space. Her jaw was rigid with tension and it was easy to see her annoyance was based on nothing more than the fact her issue had caused a mild inconvenience.

  I slipped my hand into hers and by the time we made our way toward the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, she’d settled again and was back to chattering inanely. We spent ten minutes paying our respects to those who’d lost their lives during the Vietnam War—including two uncles she’d never met—and continued along the path, still holding hands. The feeling of being joined to her was so sweet I felt like I might cry. We took our time, stopping at the Lincoln Memorial before strolling alongside the Reflecting Pool toward the World War II Memorial.

  Being a Friday rather than a weekend, the crowd was fairly light, which meant we could move around easily. Sabine squeezed my hand before gently disengaging herself. When I committed to moving left around the circular structure, she wandered off to the right. This was the second time we’d visited together and Sabine had done the same thing then too, as though she needed solitude to work through her thoughts.

  She came from a military line—her father was a sergeant in Vietnam and his two brothers killed in action. Her grandfather and great grandfather fought in both world wars. For Germany. Sabine was int
ensely proud of her German heritage, but I knew she had mixed feelings about her grandfather, a conscripted and unwilling infantryman who left his mother country for America the moment he could after WWII. The first time she’d explained her family history, she’d told me tearfully and emphatically, “He wasn’t a fucking Nazi, Bec. They made him fight against America.”

  Standing in front of the Freedom Wall, I stared at the thousands of gold stars representing over four hundred thousand Americans who lost their lives in the Second World War. A hand brushed fleetingly over my back and I jerked in surprise.

  “It’s kinda quiet today,” Sabine murmured.

  Nodding my agreement, I turned to face her. “Are you ready to keep going?”

  “Mhmm.”

  I pulled out my camera and hung it around my neck, and Sabine was patient while I photographed birds and snuck candid shots of her. We looped around the back of the pond and she paused to tug off her shoes so she could be barefoot in the grass under the grove of maples. I lowered myself to sit in the shadow of a tree, with my legs outstretched. Dimly, I registered people moving on the paths around us, but my attention was riveted to her.

  Sabine had always moved like a jungle cat—lithe, graceful and confident. But now her gait was that of someone who couldn’t stop moving, with long, quick strides constantly changing direction. She did handstands, walking along on her hands before springing into a series of backflips then rushing off again the moment she’d landed. She’d given up gymnastics as a child but when she was coiled up like this, it was as though she couldn’t help herself.

  I left her alone, and simply enjoyed watching the way she moved and how she’d turn back in my direction every few minutes as though reassuring herself I was still there. I reasoned that she needed to remember, to reconnect with her life here so she could leave the deployment behind. At the same time, I wondered how long it would take her to equilibrate so our lives could return to some semblance of normality.