“Please, join us.” Aidan said as she offered Rowen a seat.
“Thank you. How have you been, Cassidy?” Rowen asked, as she sat down in the chair offered to her.
Aidan replied, “Well, I’m about to be married, and am now a Special Agent for the Department of Homeland Security.” Aidan then asked inquisitively, “Are you still in the Army, Master Sergeant?” Aidan would have called her by her first name, as is proper when not wearing the uniform, but she didn’t know it. There was never the occasion for her to know it, as Rowen was a higher rank and not her friend per se.
“Call me Sherrie, and yes, I have seven more years to go until retirement. I’m surprised that you didn’t stay in the Army, Cassidy. I could tell that you loved it.”
“Yes ma’am, I did. But I was discharged when I lost my memory in an insurgent attack in Iraq last year. Uh, speaking of memory loss, I seem to have forgotten my manners.” Aidan turned to her friends and made the introductions, “Everyone, this is Master Sergeant Sherrie Rowen, who use to kick my ass a lot on base in Texas.” Aidan then went around the table, starting with Leonard, “This is my soon to be father-in-law, retired First Sergeant, Leonard Montgomery, Marine. And this is Retired Technical Sergeant Paul Stewart, Military Police, Air Force. And retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel, Dr. Richard Kline, Chief Hospital Psychologist at St. Frances Hospital. And Jerry you’ve met before, Army Specialist Jerry Williams, now also a Special Agent with DHS.”
“I am impressed with your friends, Cassidy,” Rowen accepted a mug of beer from Leonard, “Considering that all your friends sitting around you are military.”
Aidan’s eyes grew large, never realizing that fact until just then. She’s right, all my friends are military. Maybe that’s why I don’t miss the Army as much as I first did.
“You could re-enlist in the Army and continue your career service.”
“A temping thought, Sherrie, and I’ll keep it as an option, but I’m heading up my own team for DHS now and really like the investigative work that I’m doing.”
“Well, as you say, keep the Army as an option. We need Medal of Honor recipients such as you.”
Aidan blushed shyly. She would never get use to the fact that she was awarded the medal, and that people gushed over her because of it. Thankfully, Rowen didn’t dwell on it, and in fact, changed the subject.
“The last time I saw you playing poker like this, Cassidy, I thought I was going to have to give you a demerit for fighting.”
Kline perked up, remembering that Aidan had received several demerits while in the Army. And though he knew now what had provoked those demerits, the fact that she was in love with two women at the same time, which left her frustrated and angry, he only knew the generic reasons for her receiving them. Here was his chance to learn more about the actual clinical reasons. “Tell us about it, won’t you please, Ms. Rowen?”
Rowen laughed and looked to Aidan for approval, and Aidan nodded her head, laughing also. Rowen turned back to Kline and said, “Call me Sherrie, and I’ll tell you.” She smiled, and then began telling them how she had walked into a bar a lot like this one, to find a hefty sized Marine on his knees holding his privates, with two other enlisted men standing behind him, pointing their broken beer bottles with sharp edges at Aidan. She pointed to Jerry and described how he stood behind Aidan with his own broken bottle, but Aidan held nothing in her tightly balled up fists, only a cigar clinched between her teeth. Rowen smirked when she described the tears in the Marines eyes, because if it had been any other soldier, he surely would have pummeled them into the ground. “When I asked Aidan why she kicked him in his business, she said it was because he irritated her. The bartender told me later, that it had more to do with Aidan embarrassing the Marine in front of the others, by bluffing his winning hand. Now I had written Aidan up before for a similar infraction, but I decided not to at that time.”
“Sherrie, why didn’t you write her up that time, when you had before?” Kline asked analytically.
“I saw the roster for deployment, and knew she was due to ship out to Iraq shortly, and I didn’t want to send her off to war on a negative note like that. I gave her a stern talking to instead.”
“And I think it worked too.” Aidan smiled at her sheepishly.
“How so?” asked Sherrie.
“Oh, uh, I, uh, well…” Aidan found it hard to talk about herself, and the words just wouldn’t come out.
Jerry spoke up for her, along with every man sitting at the table, and told the story of Aidan’s heroic deeds in Iraq, and also her heroic deeds at the hospital where terrorist had held it hostage with bombs under the patient floors. How those deeds led to not only the highest military honor, the Congressional Medal of Honor, for acts of valor above and beyond the call of duty, but also the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor bestowed on a civilian. Almost gushing now, Jerry went on to tell how Aidan was practically handed the job at DHS, arranged for her by former President Trenton, and given carte blanche to choose her own team to lead on her first day on the job. Jerry concluded with the proud fact that he was her first choice for her new team.
“So you’ve come full circle since I saw you last, Cassidy. I’m glad to see that the anger has gone from your eyes, and gladder still, to learn you can play poker without kicking someone in the balls.”
Everyone laughed, although the men’s thoughts went straight down to their private places.
“Well, I see my friends have arrived,” she looked toward the door, and waved, “so I will say goodbye to all of you, and thank you for the drink and the company. Cassidy, I’m really glad you got your act together. I wasn’t so sure there for a while.” She laughed, and then added, “Congratulations on your upcoming wedding.”
Aidan stood and shook Rowen’s hand, “Thank you, Master…, uh, Sherrie.”
As Aidan watched her leave the room, Jerry cranked up the music, and a very large, cardboard cake, was wheeled in. Oh shit! Aidan swore under her breath and slumped back down in her chair. She looked at Leonard apologetically, knowing what was about to happen. Maybe the girl will be a bisexual so the guys can keep her busy. Her knee began to twitch up and down, shaking her whole body, almost in rhythm to the music. And then the music stopped, replaced by the sound track of a drum roll.
Aidan closed her eyes, afraid that the scantily dressed, breast implanted, college student that Jerry had surely hired, will embarrass her in front of her future father-in-law. Suddenly she heard paper tearing and a loud noise, and then a voice shouted, “Surprise!”
“Vicky?” Aidan recognized her voice and immediately opened her eyes again to see Vicky standing in the cardboard cake, her arms up in the air twirling tassels around her fingers, a smile stretched across her face, and her crystal blue eyes sparkling with mischief. Aidan laughed so hard she almost fell out of her chair. Vicky was still in her blue and green flower print flared dress that she had worn to her bridal shower, but she had removed her jacket, and tucked the straps under her arms, hoping to look more like a sex stripper. She giggled at having pulled one over on her betrothed.
Now this is my kind of stripper! Aidan was suddenly in a hurry to end her bachelorette party and take Vicky home.
Two hours later the wedding was called off.
Chapter 2
Sweat dripped from her short auburn hair down to her chest, trickling inbetween her salty breasts, and soaking into her sports bra. She ignored it and kept running. Aidan’s cut off t‒shirt showed the tight muscular abdomen, glistening with moisture, as it trickled down to soak the rim of her shorts, irritating her skin. She ignored it also, and kept running. Every muscle in her long sinewy legs screamed in prickly pain, each time her foot hit the pavement. And still she kept running. She ran through the dark streets, down the back alleys and across town, until her body screamed no more. She had run full out until she couldn’t run any further.
“I thought I’d find you here.” Jerry walked over to where his best friend sat at the bar.<
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“Jerry? What are you doing here?” Aidan had limped into her favorite pub, O’Brien’s Bar and Grill, and ordered a Boston Sour, mollifying herself that it was an energy drink of a sort, to replenish the liquids she had lost when she was running. Sitting at the furthest end of the bar, where she could dull her mind with a drink and blur her apparitions with the smoke from her cigar, Aidan didn’t want company. She didn’t want interruptions of any kind, not even from her own mind.
“Vicky called. She was worried about you.” Jerry said as he slid onto a bar stool next to her and ordered a beer.
“Damn it, when I left she was asleep. I was trying not to worry her. Did she tell you what happened?”
“Just that she had a flashback about Harold, and you thought it was your fault. She asked me to find you and talk some sense into you.”
A cold chill ran down Aidan’s back at the memory of what she had done. At the terror she had seen in Vicky’s eyes. Terror that she knew, she had put there herself.
~*~
“You were so adorable in that cake today, baby. I saw a whole new side to you that I would like to see more of,” Aidan said, her hands shaking with anticipation at the feel of her lover’s warm breast against the palm of her hand.
“Oh, so you liked it when I jiggle my tassels?” Vicky asked.
Aidan, envisioning her lover as a stripper again, replied huskily, “Oh yeah, baby, jiggle away.”
Vicky laughed and took a step back. She shimmied out of her dress and stood before Aidan wearing nothing but a short jacket and a pair of bikini panties. She gathered her jacket around her breasts and began rhythmically rolling her shoulders, first one and then the other, thrusting her leg out, slowly sauntering towards Aidan as she did. Vicky puckered her lips out seductively and teased Aidan with a quick peek at one of her naked breasts.
The pupils in Aidan’s eyes expanded twice their size as she gasped for air. Vicky had never been the teasing withholding type of lover, and it had Aidan wet already just watching her. “Oh, baby! What are you doing to me?”
Vicky giggled, and then suppressed it quickly. Resuming her stripper façade, she turned her back to Aidan and bent over, sliding her fingers under her panties and pushing them down, one hip at a time.
Aidan could hardly breathe, and struggled to say, “Oh baby, tomorrow I will marry the most magnificent, gorgeous, sexiest stripper on earth.” She reached out and cupped Vicky’s butt cheek, squeezing lustfully, but Vicky stepped away, and turned to face her.
“You’re over dressed,” Vicky growled, and began unbuttoning Aidan’s shirt, letting it fall to the floor. Vicky’s eyes widen at the sight of Aidan’s taut breast, erecting sharply at the sudden gust of cool air running across the tips. She swatted Aidan’s inpatient hand away as she unsnapped her jeans and knelt down, unzipping them with her teeth. She pulled the jeans down past Aidan’s naked hips, and slid her hands over Aidan’s butt cheeks, squeezing hard as she pushed the jeans the rest of the way down. Aidan stepped out of them, as Vicky, still kneeling in front of her, looked up with a grin. Aidan’s body trembled at the sharp pleasures radiating through her out-of-control body. Vicky could feel Aidan’s heat emanating against her face, and knew that she was close to an orgasm. She slipped her warm tongue between the folds covering Aidan’s clit and Aidan shuddered with instant release.
“Fuck me!” Aidan exclaimed, falling on the bed when her knees buckled, clinching the last spasm of orgasmic electricity from her body. “Damn! Where did that come from?”
Vicky giggled, enjoying her lover’s climax almost as much as she did, “I don’t know, I thought that’s what strippers were supposed to do?”
“I wouldn’t know since I’ve never had a stripper like you before.” Aidan grinned, and held her hand out for Vicky to join her.
Vicky climbed on the bed and swatted her on the butt, “So you’re saying that you have had a stripper before?”
“Well, uh, would you think less of me if I said I had?” Aidan grinned again, pulling off Vicky’s jacket so that her lips could kiss those firm nipples.
“I would never think less of you, but I can’t guarantee that I wouldn’t be jealous.”
Aidan rolled Vicky over so that she was under her. “Trust me, baby, you have nothing to be jealous of. They can’t hold a candle to you.” Aidan held Vicky’s wrists down against the pillows, and kissed her hard and deep.
“Spread your legs for me, baby,” Aidan whispered and Vicky complied. Aidan kissed her lover’s breasts, sucking and nipping at first one and then the other, while she rhythmically pushed her knee against Vicky’s clitoris, instantly feeling her lubrication. Vicky arched her back and tried to move but Aidan had her immobilized. Taking control away from Vicky was not something she gave in to easily, but not being able to move only seemed to enhance the sensations, until...
“No! Let me go!” Vicky cried, struggling against Aidan to get free.
“Do you like that baby?” Aidan grinned down at her lover, but when she looked into Vicky’s eyes she saw only fear, she instantly released her grip and asked confused, “Vicky?”
“Get off of me! No, please, it hurts!” Vicky screamed in a little girl’s voice, swatting at Aidan blindly. “Daddy help me!”
“Oh shit! Oh shit!” Aidan immediately got off of her and grabbed her clothes. “Oh God, I’m so sorry Vicky. I wasn’t thinking!”
Aidan was beside herself with fear, mixed with self-loathing. She realized too late that when she pinned Vicky down, she must have done some of the same things Vicky’s rapist, Aidan’s father, had done to her when she was thirteen. The thought that Vicky was seeing her as her rapist, was more than Aidan could bear, and she ran out of the room.
When Vicky was thirteen years old, and Aidan fourteen, the two experimented with a little heavy petting in the tree house in Aidan’s backyard. But before they could consummate their love for one another, Alice caught them in the act. When she threatened to tell Vicky’s father, Aidan panicked, terrified that he would punish Vicky the same way her father had punished her repeatedly, with a belt slashed across her back. For that reason, Aidan ran away, hoping that her disappearance would protect Vicky. It took fifteen years before she learned that it wasn’t Vicky’s parents who hurt Vicky; it was Aidan’s father, Harold Cassidy.
Harold was already an abusive man toward his daughter, but when Alice threatened to have him arrested because his daughter was, in her eyes, molesting her child, he was furious. Unfortunately Aidan had already run away by then, and when Vicky went looking for her best friend, she found Harold instead. In a blind rage he raped her, and then threatened to kill Aidan if she told anyone. She never did. Not even her therapist knew, until just a few months ago, when she told him and Aidan, in a session that was supposed to be helping Aidan. Unfortunately that revelation broke Aidan’s heart so deeply, that she didn’t know if she could ever get past it. But secrets needed to be exposed, if they were going to be absolved from the relationship. She could only hope that would be the case…, someday.
Harold had disappeared shortly after he molested Vicky, and everyone thought he was dead, until he resurfaced a few weeks ago. Vicky didn’t recognize him, but her subconscious had, and it brought back her terrifying nightmares again. Nightmares she had been burdened with since she was molested. Aidan and Dr. Kline worked together to keep Vicky from learning that her rapist was after her again, and it worked for a while, until Harold held Vicky’s parents hostage. Then Vicky had no choice but to come face to face with the evil monster that lived in her worst nightmares, and if not for Aidan’s intervention, she would have been molested again. Harold now sits in jail awaiting trial.
“No, wait!” Vicky cried, but Aidan was already down the hall, to upset to hear her. Vicky quickly grabbed her robe and chased after her, “Aidan wait. Please!”
Aidan stood in the living room, frantically dressing, cursing to herself as she did. After zipping up her blue jeans, she sat on the couch and stuffed her foot into a boot.
“Please honey, forgive me.”
“Forgive you?” Aidan jumped up, wearing just the one boot and jeans, with her shirt hanging open, still unbuttoned, her skin flushed with anger, “My God! It was my fault! I’m a bastard and I will never forgive myself for causing that fear I saw in your eyes…, oh, God,” Aidan collapsed on the couch again, cringing at the memory of her lover lying underneath her, terrified of her.
“Aidan, please look at me. Damn it, look at me!” Vicky yelled, and this time Aidan heard her, “Aidan please, please don’t think it was your fault, it wasn’t, it was mine. I don’t know what happened. When I couldn’t move I just sort of flashed back to your father, and I panicked.”
Aidan’s self-loathing took a deeper turn, “I really am my father’s daughter I guess.”
Vicky was at first stunned, and then she was angry, “Don’t you dare say that! You are nothing like him, NOTHING! Do you hear me? You are the kindest most loving person I know, and I’ve known you since first grade. No, it was my fault. It was stupid of me and I’m so sorry, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”
Aidan was not about to let Vicky take the blame for something she felt she had caused, “No baby, you are completely without fault here.” She wanted to hold her but she was afraid to touch her now, and for the first time in her life, she was completely unsure of who she was, and terrified of what she had become. How could I have done that to her?
But Vicky didn’t think twice about it, she went to Aidan and wrapped her arms around her waist, and laid her head on Aidan’s shoulder. She could feel Aidan trembling beneath her cheek, and her weakness, her vulnerability, brought tears to Vicky’s eyes. She pulled Aidan tighter, pressing her small warm hands into Aidan’s back, as if to capture her before she ran away again.
Aidan responded instinctively, wrapping her arms around Vicky, and running her fingers through her blond hair, losing herself in its softness, in its virtuousness. She kissed the top of Vicky’s head and whispered, “You are all that matters to me and I will do whatever it takes to protect you.” Even if it means protecting you from me..., even if it means I have to run away again.
Remember This Day Page 2
