by Lance Berry
Jack sat impotently on the couch, and tears began to run down his face. It had been years since he’d cried, and even then, his son had never seen those tears. With an unexpected retch, Travis threw up on the carpet, unable to even clutch his stomach as his body continued to shudder unabatedly.
Jack slowly rose, about to go to the bathroom to get a wet cloth…when the briiiip-brip-briiiip of the vid-com in the den caught him off-guard. He glanced back at Travis, who had momentarily stopped throwing up. He headed in the direction of the bathroom, but then turned to the door just opposite it, and headed downstairs.
Jack wiped his eyes and swore as he entered the den, wondering who in the hell could be calling at this hour of the morning, and why. He had finished his debriefing on the stability of the UEF stronghold in the Altair sector, so no one in Command could be calling him for further updates. He and his crew were officially on leave. Unless a sudden emergency had come up, they weren’t due to ship out for another two weeks.
He sat in front of the screen and flipped the com on. Instantly, the stern, always-ashen face of General Diane Forshant snapped into clarity. Beneath her face, off to the left, the words “Bound Line” flashed continually. This signified not only that the transmission was encrypted in several different ways, but also that the sender–the general–was on Earth, possibly in very close proximity, to ensure against the signal beam escaping the planet’s gravity field, as standard transmissions sometimes did. “Captain Richards,” she stated, a mild note of apology glossing the words. “As you know, I’d never call you at such an hour, if it weren’t important.”
A slight sigh escaped Jack’s lips. He couldn’t help it, and instantly straightened a bit in his chair as he realized it had slipped out. “Forgive me, General. It’s just…”
Forshant waved dismissively. “Don’t worry, Jack. I know. It’s never a good time, is it?”
He nodded, grateful for her understanding. The pale woman observed him in a passive, even manner as she continued. “There’s been some sudden movement of Calvorian forces in both the Procyon and Vega starsystems. Do I need to spell out what this means?”
Jack rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Jesus. Both systems border Altair in relatively close proximity. They’ve found out about the new stronghold we’ve built.”
Forshant nodded slowly. “So far it’s only a theory as, believe it or not, the President and the Joint Chiefs aren’t convinced of that yet.” She said this with an undisguised disgust in her voice. “They think it could either be a coincidence, or that the enemy’s simply massing forces in two different areas…preparing them for a later rendezvous as the super-fleet makes its way to Earth.”
“You don’t believe this, of course.”
“No,” Forshant answered, as if daring him to oppose her position. “It was a mistake, Jack…electing someone like Pappert. We need decisive action to win this war, not eternal optimism.”
“I agree. That being the case, what are your orders, Fleet Commander?”
Forshant’s overly done red lips formed a razor-thin smile, which bisected her nearly chalk-white features. “I like you, Jack. You’re going to go damn far in this institution. Here’s the plan…”
Jack climbed back upstairs, to find Travis hunched over. But the boy was no longer throwing up; he had gotten a pail out of the closet, filled it with water, and was sopping up his puke with a drenched cloth. He was silent and methodical, grasping some up in the cloth, dunking it to cleanse the matter free, wringing it, and repeating the action. Jack stood in place, watching his foster son for what seemed to be a very long time…the anger and regret he felt earlier being slowly replaced with warmth he had not truly felt for some time.
He deserved to know.
“Travis,” he said quietly, “I’ve received new orders. The Samurai has to leave port in two days. I have to leave in the morning. But, before I go…I guess it is finally time for me to tell you–“
“I’ve been accepted to the Sanderson School. I leave in the fall.”
Jack blinked. It took him almost a full minute to truly comprehend what Travis had said, as he wasn’t completely certain he had heard it accurately. “Please say that again,” he asked, as if he were a patient receiving a bad diagnosis from his doctor.
Travis’ shoulders slumped. He slopped up the last of his vomit and dropped the entire rag into the pail as he looked at Jack. The boy’s tears had stopped, but his eyes were somewhat puffy and red. “I applied to the Academy a while back. I didn’t say anything to you, in case I was rejected. But they accepted me, and assigned me to the Sanderson School in San Diego–“
“I know where Sanderson is,” Jack interrupted before he could stop himself. “I’ve known other Cruiser captains and soldiers who’ve gone there. It’s an exceptional school. Do you think you’re up for it?”
Travis’ face hardened a bit. “We’ll see.”
He got to his feet, grabbed the pail and moved past Jack to the bathroom, where he closed the door and emptied it. Jack waited a few minutes for the boy to come out. It soon became clear that Travis wouldn’t re-emerge for a while, and so Jack headed upstairs. He took off his shirt, hung it neatly in his closet, then sat down on the edge of the bed he once shared with his wife, to figure out when and how to begin telling his crew that their much-anticipated shore leave was being cut short. He would tell his first officer, Jorge Marquez…who would pass it along to the ship’s duty officer, who would in turn tell the department heads. The department heads would then give the bad news to the personnel under them.
Crap, it can wait until morning, Jack reasoned, and removed his boots with one hand, while he set his old-fashioned alarm clock with the other. He set the boots beside his bed, then took off his pants and folded them across a hanger behind his shirt. He yawned, allowing his body to begin the process of shutting down for the night. As he pulled his covers back, a thought came unbidden to him: When did it all go so wrong? When, exactly, was the point when his son had stopped loving him? When was it that Jack had come to prefer deep-space assignments to being around his boy? Travis had been a good kid once–hell, Jack knew on some level that he was in the process of becoming a good man. Enrolling in a military school was a sure sign of that. But the boy held so much anger and resentment toward him, and for what? For attempting to be a loving father and trying to shield him from the realities of death at Violet’s funeral, well over a decade past? And now, of course, with the mentioning of his real parents’ deaths, Travis would find a way to hunker down in his trench of resentment and be forever angry with Jack for not telling him the truth.
Why the hell did I mention his parents? Jack thought in anguish. Had he really sunk so low in his arguments with Travis that he was willing to taunt the boy in any way possible in order to gain some type of victory over him? If so, what did that say about what kind of man he himself had become over the years?
Chapter 5
Travis nearly dozed off twice while sitting on the toilet cover for a breather, and finally came around enough to make it out to the living room. He didn’t feel like trudging up the stairs, and so passed out on the couch. He didn’t stir in the slightest when Jack came down the stairs with his suitcase later that morning, or when he closed the door behind him as he left. It wasn’t until around 1:00pm, as a matter of fact, that Travis did wake up–and only then because the seemingly incessant knocking at the front door managed to somehow penetrate the depths of his slumber. He pushed himself off the couch, shambled tiredly to the door, and opened it. Gilda stood outside in a lovely floral print summer dress, her eyebrows raised slightly in surprise as she looked him up and down.
“You look terrible,” she said, her voice showing no attempt to hide her displeasure. “And you don’t smell that great, either. Rough night out with the boys?”
Travis sighed. “Don’t you start. You can either come in and play nice, or you can stand there and criticize me to death. What’ll it be?”
“Can I choose one from column A, one from column B?” s
he asked facetiously. “It’ll be more efficient that way.”
Travis stared at her stupidly a moment, as his throbbing headache made cogent thought a veritable impossibility. Shit. I must’ve had more to drink than I thought. On the heels of that, he silently vowed to not touch alcohol again. It then came to him that he should probably check on Jared and Carver when he got a chance, just to make sure they got home alright. He backed away from the door, leaving it open for Gilda to enter. She closed it as she stepped in, and watched with a mixture of amusement and pity on her face as Travis slumped onto the couch, holding his head with both hands as he leaned back.
“I still don’t see why you hang with those guys, Travis. They’re not good for you. They’re going to drag you down in the long run.”
“Yes, dear,” Travis answered mockingly, not looking at her as he slowly rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “I happen to have a three-point-nine GPA in nine of my classes, and a three-point-one in my tenth. I think I can afford to choose my own friends, and do what I like at this point in my life. Thank you.”
Gilda didn’t know what to say. As much as she cared for Travis, the two of them weren’t dating. Even as a friend, she wasn’t sure how much of a right she had to criticize the choices he made for himself, good or bad. And she didn’t want to risk alienating him as well. She decided to move onto another subject, although she wasn’t sure as to how much this might piss him off also. “I saw your dad leaving this morning.”
Now Travis uncovered his eyes and looked up at her in surprise. He glanced in the direction of the stairs, then back at her. “He left? I didn’t even hear him go.”
Gilda shrugged. “I was at my window when the AirKab pulled up. He had a suitcase when he got in. I thought he was supposed to be on shore leave?”
Travis shook his head slowly. “Bastard,” he muttered, then leaned his head back once more, closing his eyes. “He was supposed to be here for at least a month. Maybe he got called away again. He could’ve at least said goodbye. I didn’t know he was that pissed off.”
“About what?”
Travis sighed, and patted the cushion next to him. Gilda sat down as requested, and listened intently as he spoke: “He was here last night, when I got in. To say he wasn’t pleased with my being buzzed would be understating it. We had some words, but then I found out that he knows…” He paused, and his eyes slowly opened. He stared straight up at the ceiling, and Gilda could see there was a type of hurt in his eyes. “Gilda, he knows how my parents really died.”
Gilda’s eyes grew wide in astonishment. “I…I thought your parents died a year or so after you were born. They were aboveground in the Wastelands, and got locked out of a command bunker by mistake. The radiation took them…”
Travis sniffled just a bit, and his chest heaved slightly as he looked at her. “Surprise,” he said bitterly.
“How did they really die?”
Travis shook his head, and quickly found he had to cradle his temple as he did so. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “Jack wouldn’t tell me. He fed me some bullshit line about how their deaths were a matter of UEF security. How he couldn’t tell me ‘cause of state secrets and all that crap. My father was a bookkeeper, Gilda! My mom was a journalist! What the hell could they have done in their lifetimes that requires some cloak-anddagger sealing of their death records?”
Fresh tears appeared in Travis’ eyes and he leaned forward, cradling his face in his hands, suddenly embarrassed to have Gilda see him in this state. She rubbed his back gently, soothingly. They had known each other for many years, and she knew the fact that he had never known his true parents always bothered him. It was bad enough that his foster mother, whom he had loved more than anyone in his life, died when he was only four; but he had absolutely no recollection of his parents–who they were, what they looked like. No letters from them, no physical trace of his lineage. Even though it made no matter to anyone that Travis was a black child adopted by a white couple, the difference in their ethnicity sometimes only served to show how far removed he was from his true genealogy. He loved his aunt Lisa, of course, but she lived so far away. The only other relative he had in his life was Jack, and considering the relationship they shared, that certainly wasn’t saying much.
“Scootch up a bit, honey,” she said gently. “Move forward.”
Travis gave her a brief, confused glance, but did as she asked. She maneuvered herself so that she was sitting behind him on the couch, their bodies pressed closely together. She gently grasped his shoulders and led him back, leaning his head against her breasts, which rose and fell gently as she slowed her breathing to match his own.
For his part, Travis was suddenly a bit anxious; he had no idea what was going to happen next. If this was a romantic overture on Gilda’s part, he had no intention of rushing things, so that he might ruin the moment. She grasped his wrists and gently laid his hands on his legs. Even through his jeans, Gilda could see the beginnings of his erection. Travis seemed to be very well-endowed, and she wondered what it would feel like to have him enter her. She silently licked her lips, and focused on the task of getting him to relax instead. She told him to close his eyes, pressed her fingers to his temples, and began to gently rub them. He let out a deep, contented sigh, and she smiled. “If you feel yourself drifting off, it’s okay. I don’t have anything to do today. I can stay here as long as you like.”
Travis smiled, his eyes closed as he considered her proposition. “I’d like that, Gilda. Thank you.”
“No problem.” She found herself staring at his crotch once more, and kissed his forehead tenderly, curious to see how he would react.
She was somewhat disappointed, but couldn’t help but smile when he started to snore softly.
Chapter 6
Gilda woke up a few hours later, to find herself wrapped in a blanket. The last light of the sun’s rays shone softly through the living room windows. She looked around for Travis, then realized it was the enticing smell of cooking meat that had awakened her. She gently disentangled herself, leaving the blanket on the couch as she went into the kitchen. Travis had changed his clothes and stood at the oven, checking a pair of broiling steaks inside it as pasta boiled on the stove above.
When she approached him, she realized he had also showered, as he now smelled much better, fresher. They looked at one another silently a moment, not even saying hello. They kissed gently, lovingly, in the tender method of greeting favored by old married couples. They shared a look of pleasant surprise, and kissed again. Wordlessly, Gilda set the dining room table as Travis finished dinner. There was very little small talk as they ate, save for Gilda’s compliments of surprise and pleasure at his cooking abilities. Travis admitted that it was Jack who had taught him how to cook (a “basic survival skill” he had called it), one of the very few things for which Travis was grateful to him. Their hands played with each other occasionally as they ate, and afterward Gilda gladly did the dishes herself, even though there was a dishwasher. The young couple moved back to the living room couch, where they quickly set upon each other, kissing passionately as she undid his pants and he relieved her of her undergarments.
The both of them being virgins, each was somewhat nervous. To ease the tension, Gilda fellated Travis first, and he gratefully pleasured her orally in return. They were in the process of undressing each other further, when a sharp knock at the door nearly gave them both coronaries.
Gilda managed to stash her panties beneath the couch cushions, and Travis zipped his pants up as he reached the door. It was Gilda’s father, who in no uncertain terms stated that his daughter had been visiting long enough for the day. Although Gilda’s father was hardly as imposing a figure as Travis’ own (Mister Ramirez suffered from Goyle’s Thoracic Rachischisis, one of the few untreatable diseases left, and which was responsible for his chronically bad posture), Travis respected his elders, and offered no argument. Although Ramirez knew that the boy genuinely cared for his daughter, there was a scent just
underneath the smell of cooked food, which permeated the house that he just didn’t like. Perhaps it was father’s intuition, perhaps not…but he had gotten the feeling that if he hadn’t come over when he did, a potentially big mistake was about to happen. He made no mention of this presentiment to either of them, however.
Gilda didn’t protest when her father told her to come along, and she and Travis shared a chaste hug. Travis watched through the closed front door’s window pane, frustration coursing through him as the two headed back to their house.
Travis contacted Jared and Carver later on, and was relieved that they had in fact made it home okay. “Of course, dingus,” Jared said playfully. “Unlike you, I know how not to get busted by my folks.” They shared a laugh over the three-way vid-link, then went on to discussing other things: the upcoming school year, Travis’ chance to make a name for himself at the Sanderson School, and at Jared’s initiation, of course, girls.
He never told them about what had happened with Gilda.
About 2:00am, Travis was awakened by the plaintive buzz of the vidcom. It was Gilda, who informed him that her parents were asleep, and she wanted to come over. He agreed eagerly, and left the front door open. She arrived wearing a nightgown that was tucked into a pair of jeans. Travis had on only his sweat pants. As they kissed on the way to his bedroom, Travis was struck by a pang of conscience. He admitted to Gilda that he was unprepared for this moment, and didn’t have any condoms. Truth was, he hadn’t anticipated her coming back, and didn’t go to the store. Privately, he knew that he could’ve convinced her to make love without a condom… but he had to admit to himself, they were both too young to be parents.
Gilda appreciated his honesty, and suggested they do other things, until he finally made time to get to the store at some point. They disrobed and climbed into bed, where they spent some time exploring each other’s pleasure areas, discussing what they expected/hoped for from the experience of losing their virginity, and masturbated each other frequently. Gilda set his alarm so that she could wake up early enough to sneak home, and she and Travis fell asleep in each others’ arms, content with their new intimacy.
