RED HOT RANCH

by Swale, Lizzie

  They spoke for a little longer, then both of them made their way to the master bedroom and started to prepare for bed. Jane didn’t know what to do, she didn’t know what to say. There was so much on her mind and she didn’t just want to unload on Kyle because she knew that he had just as much on his mind as well. But at the same time it wasn’t fair to her to never give voice to her feelings. She needed to be a human and tell him how she was feeling.

  When they slid into the sheets together she felt Kyle take her in his arms and hold her tenderly. He kissed her neck and nibbled her earlobe. Jane could feel her body responding to him, the way that her breathing increased, and the way that her pulse hammered through her like the bass at a rock concert. Kyle had a way of turning her on that she hadn’t known before meeting him. He was such a good lover, always attentive to what she wanted and needed, always putting her first. Before she’d met Kyle, during college, she’d dated a lot of guys—not to excess—but enough to know what was going on. So when Jane started to have feelings for Kyle, way back in the day, and they finally slept together she knew how lucky she was to have him as a lover. Many women went their whole lives with someone who really didn’t do it for them. Jane wasn’t one of those women.

  As Kyle slid his hand down her thigh she felt her body stiffen slightly. She was glad that he could still have this effect on her. The way his fingers would run down her thigh and find her sex, and the way he touched and caressed her there, it was heaven. Jane leaned her head back and kissed Kyle on the mouth as he spooned her, running his hands up and down the length of her body. It wasn’t long until she found herself on top of Kyle, riding him, slowly at first but quickly picking up tempo. She always loved the way he looked up at her when she was on top of him, loved the way that he always did his best to please her and make her happy, in and out of the bedroom. Maybe that was the real secret to good sex, being able to please each other beyond just sex. Maybe.

  Jane could feel herself edging closer and closer to orgasm, and as she moved on top of her husband she could feel him growing harder inside of her in preparation for his own. In the moments before ecstasy she always wondered at how funny it was that bodies got ready for a big shebang without heed of the people controlling the bodies, as if the bodies were things unto themselves. Then the first wave of pleasure rolled through Jane like a tsunami. She went from riding Kyle to holding onto him for dear life while he moved underneath her. It felt so good all she saw was white for a second, like the whole world had turned into a blizzard of sexual static—then she was back. Just as the second, but slightly less intense, wave of pleasure rolled through her like silent thunder she felt Kyle orgasm as well. She collapsed on top of him and writhed in pleasure as he gripped her tightly. It felt so good to be fulfilled like that.

  Slowly they drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms. It wasn’t long until Jane was having vivid dreams like she always did after sex.

  Chapter 2

  She was high atop a mountain crag in the middle of the desert, looking down at a slowly moving convoy. The American vehicles were all shiny with their armor plating, although they somewhat resembled porcupines the way guns bristled off of them. As they slowly chugged along Jane spied a man in the distance, behind some shrubs so that the American forces couldn’t see him. When the third vehicle rolled by the man drew his cell phone out of his pocket, seemed to fiddle with it, and then there was a huge explosion that seemed to dissolve a Humvee.

  Jane cried out and tried to find a way down from the mountain top, but couldn’t. There was no way down. And all she could do was watch as the American forces scrambled to recover the wounded and search for the person responsible for detonating the bomb. As she watched, the world turned hazy, then gray. At first she thought it must have been some kind of effect from the explosion, but then she realized that she was waking up. The world around her began to dissolve. First the sky turned a tinge of dark purple, then black, then to a nothingness so much blacker than black it made her wonder why people thought the dark was scary. Then the sands kicked up off the desert floor as if by a great wind. Soon a huge dirt devil was twisting over the forces, and they were sucked up into the nothingness along with the trigger man.

  Jane panicked and tried to climb higher up into the mountains but again there was no way for her to make it up any higher. She really was stuck where she was. Just a casual observer to the mayhem in front of her. But instead of climbing up she felt herself begin to rise up, and up, and up, until she too was headed for the chasm in the sky. When she got there she woke up.

  Chapter 3

  The month before Kyle deployed flew by. She did her best to stay strong and not cry in front of him, but it was really hard. Brian, Kyle’s brother, came over on occasion to see if she needed anything. But everything was fine, and the more she reminded herself of that the more she sort of believed it. But there was always that niggling doubt in the back of her mind that wouldn’t just let her let go of everything. She was always thinking about Kyle going over, and always thinking about what could happen to him. There was just no way not to think about it.

  Before he left there was a kind of family day the unit put on. Jane went and saw Kyle stand in formation in front of his men, she saw the way the rest of the wives, mothers, and fathers seemed so strong. But she also saw people weeping as well, saw the way people were cracking under the pressure. And then, like that, they were gone. At the end of family day the troops didn’t go back home with the family, but instead go on buses and headed off to the fort where the Guard unit operated out of.

  When Jane got home she was so lonely, lost, and forlorn. What was she going to do with Kyle around? Kyle had been her lover and best friend. They had been everything to each other. And now he was gone. And he might never come back. She tried not to think of it that way as she sat at her kitchen table and sobbed. She tried not to think of it in negative terms, but there was just no way around the face that Kyle was gone and that she might not ever see him again. Those were just the brass tacks of the situation. As she sobbed, arms crossed and head down in them, she wondered how long it would be before she heard from Kyle again.

  What little they had told the families at “family day” had included how the troops were having all of their communication devices taken away and were headed off to Kuwait to train and get ready to fight ISIS and any other threats that might crop up. Jane really wasn’t quite sure what that meant. Allowing the spectrum of possibilities to include any and all threats that could exist in the area sounded a lot to her like people were readying the families for what the military called “stop loss”—that is to say, when the military started to lose people due to them getting out, they would extend their contracts. Sometimes the military would do this to units that were already engaged overseas so they didn’t have to rotate them out. The military would just keep them there longer, keep them doing the same, tedious, boring, dangerous work.

  None of it made sense to Jane anymore. She didn’t want to think about the future or what it might hold. She didn’t want to think about all the cold nights she would have to spend by herself while Kyle was gone.

  But the days slipped by, and life continued. It wasn’t that she forgot about Kyle by any means, it was just that she knew that he would be all right, or he wouldn’t. One or the other. Right now there was pretty much now way for her to see or even talk to him. The duty that he had been assigned required a great amount of secrecy, so there were no letters, and she couldn’t even so much as hear his voice on the phone. But then the mission kicked off and many units were involved. It was all over the news. Late into the night Jane would sit and watch the television, just hoping for a glimpse of Kyle, but it never came. Instead what came were images of war that she wasn’t ready to see. And when she got on the internet the images were worse. The destruction just wasn’t something she was used to seeing, and she had a hard time dealing with it.

  At first she didn’t feel like she had anyone she to even talk to, like all the meaningf
ulness had completely and totally left her life. But then she remembered that Brian had said to call him if she needed anything. So one night, up late worrying about Kyle, she did call Brian. And they talked for a long time. Not about the war with ISIS, or about Kyle, but about anything and everything in order to take her mind off of what was hurting her heart. At first they talked about the weather, how it was unseasonably cold and it would probably make for a hard winter. Then they talked about politics, how no one in congress had any idea what was going on, then about the economy and how the minimum wage needed to be raised substantially if anyone wanted to have a chance. But eventually they did find their way to Kyle, in some roundabout fashion that neither of them saw coming. Brian was Kyle’s older brother and had served in the Marines in Iraq years before. He had been part of the invasion that had been so successful in its blitz of Baghdad. Jane asked some hard questions, and Brian took his time to answer.

  “I’m not sure what to make of it either, Jane,” Brian said. “I mean, the whole thing needed to be fixed, but honestly I’m not sure if this was the right way. If we don’t build schools and hospitals along with our military efforts how in the world can we expect the fundamentalism to lose its grip there? It’s like we actually plan on trying to kill terrorism with bullets. Which does sound like a pretty decent plan at first, when it’s first said out loud, because bullets do a really good job of killing things. But what it doesn’t take into account is that ideas can’t be killed by bullets. And no matter how many people we kill in an effort to eradicate an idea, that isn’t how it works. I mean, I’m not saying anything radical here, this is stuff that anyone would say on the street who has been paying attention even a little bit.”

  “Then why was Kyle so ready to go?” Jane asked. “Why did he want to go over so badly.”

  Brian sighed, and Jane could envision him shaking his head on the other end of the phone.

  “Me and Kyle grew up in a military family. We were taught to believe in things that we couldn’t see, like God, patriotism, and other stuff like that. So we both felt like we needed to answer the call. For awhile he held out, and when he joined the Guard I initially thought that it wouldn’t be enough for him. When I was active duty in the Marine Corps life was so fast paced when we were at war, and getting ready to go to war. But all the downtime between deployments really takes the luster out of everything. So maybe Kyle did do the right thing by joining the Guard. I’m not sure.”

  For a few seconds there was silence on the phone. Jane wondered what Brian was getting at, or going to get at. Then he spoke again.

  “You know, I’m not sure why he wanted to go over so badly,” Brian said. “Because I didn’t have nice things to say about the war when I got back. But maybe that’s just the way it goes for a lot of people, you know? There isn’t any way to tell them not to do something they don’t want to do, you just have to let them do it and make their own mistakes. I guess maybe that’s a cop out, maybe it’s just me letting Kyle off the hook easy, because he stayed in a long time waiting to get sent over. Made it all the way to Platoon Sergeant. Which is a pretty big deal, to lead men into combat situations. But at the end of the day the reasons for him going over remain his reasons, and I’m not really privy to them at all.”

  Jane started pacing around the empty house as she spoke to Brian. Whenever she got worked up on the phone she started to pace; she’d read somewhere it was because the human brain looked for a face to go with the conversation it was having, but she didn’t know if she bought that.

  “Well didn’t you speak about it?” she said to Brian. “Didn’t you two at least talk about why he was joining up. I can’t imagine you didn’t at least give him your two cents and then he fired back with his, right? Or something like that? I just don’t understand why this is such a big deal to tell me? I know you know! Just tell me!”

  The line went quiet for a second and Jane sat back down and started to cry. She hung up right when Brian started to answer. She cried and cried. Eventually there was a knock on her door and it was Brian. She opened the door and he stepped inside. Jane flung herself into his arms and cried, cried, cried. The heavy sobs racked her body, and snot ran down her face. She looked like a mess, but Brian didn’t care. He held her for a long time, then gave her a nod and left just the way he’d come. The next day, a Saturday, Jane woke up groggy and wondered if it had happened at all. But she knew deep down that she had, and that she was lucky that Kyle had a brother like Brian in their lives, someone that knew what was going on, had been there, and understood when it was time to speak and when it was time to stand silent.

  Chapter 4

  The next few weeks Jane did her best to stay busy enough that none of it entered her mind. Her job as an dental hygienist was just going through its busy season. There were so many people that needed work done on their teeth. She cleaned and cleaned and cleaned teeth until she dreamed about them, until it was the only thought in her mind. One day she came into work early and her boss was waiting for her. It was strange to see him around the office if he didn’t need to be because he had a family that soaked up all of his attention.

  “Hey, Jim,” Jane said. “What bring you to the job so early today?”

  Jim shifted in the chair he occupied, then stood up, as if what he was about to say was something he’d rehearsed. When he squared his shoulders to look at her before he spoke she realized that was exactly what was going on.

  “Jane,” he began. “I need you to take some time off. And yes, I know it’ll make things harder for us around here at the office, but what you’re doing to yourself right now, I can’t allow it. I know you mean well, and you’ve done nothing wrong! So don’t think you’re wrong because you’ve done nothing wrong at all. I just want you to think about how much time you’ve put into the office over the last few weeks.”

  Jane stood in her coat, her purse over her shoulder, not knowing what to say.

  “Jane,” he continued. “Some of the days you’ve been working have been fifteen hour days. For six days a week. And then you come in on the other day to clean the office. We have a cleaning lady for that!”

  Jim started to pace the room but stopped himself. Jane could tell this was really hard for him. Jim was usually a really calm and quiet guy, not someone that she ever saw get worked up about anything at all. But now he was worked up, but not in the angry way. Not like that at all. He reminded her of a little kid up in front of the class getting ready for the big speech—to be more precise, in the middle of the big speech. He froze in place for a second and mopped his face off with his hand, reminding Jane of her long dead father when he used to take her and her mother out to the log cabin in the woods and chop wood for the furnace.

  “Listen,” Jim spoke soft, so that she had to come close to hear him. “I’ll pay you. All right? It’ll be like paid vacation except that it won’t count against the total tally or anything like that. I’ve already got it in writing with the my silent partner, the one who walked in on you cleaning above the ceiling tiles this last weekend. We both know you’re going through a hard time, and we aren’t pretending to know what it’s like to go through something like this. But we also both know that we have a duty to you, and to our business, to make sure that you take care of yourself.”

  “What do you mean?” Jane asked, her voice cracking.

  Tears stung her eyes, and she turned her face away.

  “I mean that you can’t come back here for a month,” Jim said. “But it’s all good, you’ll get paid! I want you to forget about this place. I want you to go somewhere and forget about the war. What our government has done is out of your hands, out of my hands, and I’m not going to let it eat you alive in front of me.”

  “You don’t understand,” Jane said. And she started to say something else but Jim cut her off.

  “No YOU don’t understand!” Jim shouted. “I watched the Vietnam war eat my mother alive. And you know what? My dad never came back home, or if he did he never told us. I’ve never
seen him since he stepped on that plane. Now I’m not saying that’s what’s going to happen to Kyle. I think Kyle is going to come home safe and sound, but probably different. But what I am saying is that I know what I’m seeing here, and I’m not going to let this thing take you under like some fucking existential shark. Not on my fucking watch, and not at my fucking business!”

  Jim stood panting, weaving back and forth like he was drunk. Jane took a step back. She’d never seen him like this before. It was almost like he’d gone crazy. But she knew that he hadn’t, that he was just putting his foot down.

  “So here’s the deal,” he said. “You take the month off. Hell, take two. And I want you to go for long walks. Go hiking in the mountains. Take up trout fishing or something. Hell, become a UFC fighter, I don’t know.”

  Jim walked over to her and put his hands on her shoulders.

  “Just know we are all rooting for you and Kyle here, and that we love you. That’s why I’m doing this. I can’t watch this anymore,” he said. “So go.”

  Jane left in a daze, and wondered if she was dreaming again. But there was no way she could dream something that vivid. It was just beyond her imagination. As she pulled out of the parking lot she wondered if this would be it for her at this job. Sure, she’d do the whole paid vacation thing, but after a talk like that it would be hard to come back and work here every day. Not because Jim didn’t care, but because he did care. If everyone that worked there had just kept their mouths shut and their ideas to themselves it would have been easy to keep racking up the hours. And it’s not like it affected them at all, it’s not like she wasn’t salaried and she was playing a game to get a bunch of overtime. She just needed time to herself away from the house was all, and since she didn’t really have a lot of friends left locally it was hard to go out for a drink, or to the movies.