The Fly Boys (23 page)

In the bedroom she said, “Let me just pop into the bathroom for a moment.” As soon as she’d stepped inside, she began to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Steve called.

“Come in and see for yourself, Cap’n.”

Steve went in. “Oh, no….” he moaned, turning white as snow and then apple red.

On the medicine chest’s mirrored door, outlined in scarlet lipstick, was a large heart. Scrawled within it was: “
I had a wonderful time last night. Call me! XXX Doreen.
”

Steve tried to think fast. “Oops,” he sighed helplessly, thinking sorrowfully of how last night’s blonde had used the facilities
just as her cab had arrived.

Linda pushed him out of the bathroom and closed the door. A minute or so later she came out. “Okay, Cap’n, let’s see if you’ve
got any gas left.”

He undressed quickly. She needn’t have worried about gas, he thought as he stepped out of his trousers and shucked off his
briefs. His erection was bobbing as he watched her unbutton and remove her white blouse, then unzip and step out of her tweed
skirt. She was wearing a pale blue brassiere and matching gartered panty girdle. His erection began to throb as she reached
around to work the clasp that liberated her fabulous breasts, then bent at the waist in a pinup pose to unclasp her nylons
and roll them down her shapely gams.

She smiled at him as she worked the zipper on her girdle, and then danced in place, wiggling out of the undergarment’s binding
confines. He grinned back. Watching them shimmy out of their girdles was a favorite part: kind of like the delicious wait
while a present was shorn of its ornate wrappings on Christmas morning.

She’d wrestled the girdle past her thighs. Her curvy, pantied rump bounced free as she stepped out of it. Her panties were
pink, trimmed with white lace. The colors reminded Steve of a strawberry ice cream sundae frothed with whipped cream. He knew
where the cherry was.

Linda was about to skim off the panties. “Leave them on a minute” he suggested slyly.

“Oh,
ho!
” Linda smirked. “And you, an all-American war hero!” she pretended to scold.

Steve stretched out his arms. She ran, her lush breasts bobbing, into his embrace. Together they flopped onto the bed.

From the start he knew that sex with this one was going to be different. He knew it from the way she didn’t just lie back
and let him have his way with her, like all the others. From the start Linda was his partner in passion, but she was also
his opponent. She scratched and tussled right along with him, giving as good as she got as they rolled and turned on the big
double bed.

When he had her good and ready for him, he reached into the bedside orange crate, where he kept his supply of foil packets
of protection. She rolled the condom onto him, and then settled back on the mattress and spread her legs, guiding him into
her. As they rocked together, they stared into each other’s eyes, giggling in wonderment and awe, and maybe just a little
fear.

When she reached her orgasm, she clutched at him, her arms around his neck and her thighs clasped around his waist. Her body
went rigid and her back arched with incredible strength, lifting up all one hundred and seventy pounds of him. The roller-coaster
ride she gave him brought on his own climax. He came moaning and growling, drowning in sensation, like a swimmer riding a
wave that suddenly overpowers him. As he kicked and bucked, she was there for him, whispering endearments, assuring him that
she could happily take all that he had to give.

After, for long ticks of the bedside clock, neither spoke a word. It was Linda, lying sweat-drenched in the crook of his arm,
her short hair a damp, dark mop on his chest, who broke the silence.

“Tell me everything about you,” she languidly commanded, her fingers idly trailing down the hard, flat plane of his belly
to tangle themselves in his moist pubic hair. “Tell me everything from the moment you were born.”

“The moment I was born was the day I learned how to fly,” Steve said.

“You really love the Air Force, huh?”

Steve thought about it. “Love the Air Force? I don’t know. For me the Air Force is home. It’s family. I mean, it’s like how
somebody might feel about his
real
family. Sometimes you love your folks, and sometimes you hate them, but the bottom line is that you belong to them and they
to you. I guess that’s how I feel about the military. When the war ended, I decided that I wanted to make the Air Force my
career. I tried to get assigned to a fighter squadron, but that didn’t come through. Instead they offered me this desk job
I’ve got now.” He hesitated, blushing. “They said the fact that I’m supposed to be a war hero—”

“Not supposed to be,” Linda interrupted. “You
are.
”

“Well anyway, they offered me this public relations job, I guess, so they could trot me out as a propaganda weapon in the
battle with the Navy over control of the nation’s air power.”

“Come on, you’re too hard on yourself,” Linda chided him, tousling his short cut, thick blonde hair. “I’m sure you do a great
job.”

“No,” Steve sighed, shaking his head. “The truth is I haven’t got the faintest idea what I’m doing. Not that they ask all
that much of me,” he added cynically.

“But they’ve kept you at it for two years now,” Linda argued.

“Sure, but I’m still a captain, same rank as when the war ended,” Steve pointed out. “Nope, I told you what I am. A propaganda
weapon. Once in a while there’s a hearing like the one presently going on. When that happens, I’m trotted out like a champion
hunting dog, except that now the hunt’s over.” He sighed. “Basically I’m living off my past.”

She smiled. “Sounds like you miss the war.”

“Can I tell you a secret?”

“Yes, Cap’n.”

“Promise not to tell?”

She lightly crossed her left breast. “Cross my heart.”

“Here, let me do that.” He rolled on top of her and used his tongue to trace a wet X across her breast. Her dark brown nipple,
glistened by his saliva, swelled to meet his lips.

“Hmmm,” she sighed. “That feels good, but I’m waiting for your secret.”

Steve lifted his head to look into her eyes. “The war was the finest time of my life,” he said. “Okay, so now you know. You
being a woman, you’re probably horrified.”

She shook her head.

“Come on,” Steve scoffed. “Even my best buddy during the war thought I was nuts when I told him.”

“Well, I don’t you’re nuts at all,” she said adamantly. “Fact is, I feel the same way as you.”

“You feel the same way as me?”

She nodded. “This puff piece I’m writing for Amalgamated is easy work, and it pays a mint, but I don’t intend to spend my
life writing this sort of fluff.”

“What do you want to write? A novel?”

Linda chuckled. “No. I told you that I’ve worked on newspapers? Well, what I really want to do is be a journalist.” Her voice
grew dreamy. “Maybe a foreign correspondent for an important newspaper. I had a little taste of it during the war. Thanks
to the draft and the civilian man-power shortage, I got the chance to do some hard reporting. I don’t mean society-page stuff,”
she added. “I mean
real journalism.
” She signed. “Of course, when the war ended and the boys came home, I got demoted back to the garden club beat. I wasn’t
interested in that, so I quit.”

“So you want to be a correspondent, huh?” Steve said doubtfully.

“Yeah.” She stretched to reach over the edge of the bed for her purse. She rummaged through it for her cigarettes.

“You mean kind of like Lois Lane?”

“Yeah,” she laughed.

“I dunno,” Steve said.

“And why don’t you?” she demanded as she lit up one of her Chesterfields.

“I just can’t imagine reading a woman reporter’s writing and thinking that she knew what she was talking about,” Steve said.
“I mean, because she’s a woman,” he added innocently. “No offense.”

“Hmmm, no offense, eh?” Linda growled with eyes narrowed as she exhaled smoke. “Don’t bother me. I’m counting to ten,
slowly.
”

Steve reached out to fondle her breasts. She pulled away, but teasingly. Steve knew she wasn’t really mad. “Aw, come on,”
he cajoled. “Baby Blue Eyes.”

“What?” she pouted.

Steve took the cigarette from her and took a puff. “Are you Don Harrison’s girl?”

She seemed startled by the question. “No … I’m my own girl, Cap’n Steve.” She grinned. “Hey, you big lug, did you think that
Don and I had something between us?”

“I was afraid that you did, but now I’m relieved,” Steve smoothly said.

But he was lying. He wasn’t relieved at all.

What he’d felt with Linda had been frightening in its intensity. Sure, it had thrilled him, but it had also scared the crap
out of him. He was used to loving ‘em and leaving ‘em, but this one … Well, if he wasn’t careful, she was going to leave her
mark on him.

“Don is a great guy,” Linda said. “He’s a gentleman and all, but he’s a little too cerebral for me.”

“Huh?” Steve had been brooding and was too preoccupied to listen.

“Nothing,” she chuckled. “All I was saying is that Don isn’t my type.”

“No? Who is?”

“You is, Cap’n.” She chucked him under the chin as she plucked the cigarette he’d swiped from her from between his lips. “You’re
my type, all right.” She took a puff off the smoke, dropped it into the ashtray, and then stretched out full-length on top
of him and began to kiss him.

This is going to be trouble
, Steve realized. He was going to have to figure out a way to give her the brush-off. He wasn’t ready to fall in love, no
matter how good it felt.

She was nibbling on his lower lip. Her breasts were pressing against his chest. He palmed the firm cheeks of her wiggly rump
as she rubbed herself against his groin.

Later
, he thought he felt himself swelling into the warm, wet fur between her thighs.
I can always give her the brushoff later…
.

It was a little after five in the afternoon. Steve was wearing a terry-cloth robe. His hair was still wet from the shower,
and his groin was aching pleasurably. He was on the telephone, calling around, trying to get a dinner reservation for this
evening. So far he’d called three places, but they were all booked. He wanted to take Linda somewhere that was tops, but it
wasn’t easy booking a table someplace like that at the last minute on a Saturday night.

Saturday night
, Steve thought, wincing. The redhead from the office. He’d totally forgotten about it, but he already had a date for tonight!

He glanced at the closed bathroom door. Linda was taking a shower. He could hear the water still running.

Thank God.

He hauled out his little black book and riffled through the pages until he found the redhead’s number. He dialed it.
Please, please be home
, he thought.

She answered. He immediately began coughing and wheezing as he launched into a bullshit story about a sudden cold and how
sorry he was about breaking their date at the last moment.

The redhead sounded icy, but he thought that she bought his cock-and-bull story. As he was hanging up, he heard Linda say
from behind him, “You really shouldn’t have done that.”

He whirled around. She was wrapped in a towel, standing in the bathroom doorway. The shower was still running, but she didn’t
look as if she’d gotten wet.

“How much of that did you hear?” Steve asked weakly.

“All of it. I was about to step into the shower when I realized that I’d left my purse with my hairbrush out here.”

“Well,” he shrugged, grinning sheepisly. “It’s done. Now we can spend the evening together.”

Linda shook her head. “I’m sorry, Cap’n, but, you see, I already have a date for tonight.”

That hit him like a ton of bricks. “But—I thought after dinner tonight we could come back here for a brandy, and …” He trailed
off, gesturing to the telephone. “
You
could suddenly catch a cold as well.” He tried to make a joke out of it. “There’s a lot of that going around.”

“I can’t. I’m really sorry, Cap’n, but I can’t.”

Steve stared at her.
I don’t believe this
, he thought, stung and feeling foolish.
She’s giving me the brush-off
.

She saw his upset look. “Look, what we had this afternoon was swell, but I don’t want you to start carrying a torch for me.
I mean, you’re a nice boy—”

“
Stop it!
” he abruptly shouted.

“Stop what?” she asked, looking mystified.

“Calling me a boy! You keep doing it, and I don’t like it!”

Linda smiled slightly. Her eyes searched his. “Honey, how old do you think I am?”

Steve pondered it. Women were touchy about this sort of crap. “Twenty-five?”

She shook her head, laughing. “You are a very sweet b—Oops! I mean, a very sweet
man
, but I’m thirty years old.”

Wow
, Steve thought, shaken. She was even older than his big sister, and Suze had already been married and had herself a toddler.

He kept staring at Linda in disbelief. He didn’t know what to say.

Her laughter faded. “Well, the water’s running. I’ll go take my shower.”

Steve was dressed and waiting when she came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. Her skin glowed from the hot shower spray.
She’d put her hair up to keep it dry, but a few dampened tendrils had escaped to frame her lovely face.

“I’ll drive you back to the hotel,” he said as she began to get dressed.

“No, thanks. I’ll take a cab,” she replied.

He nodded. “A drink before you go?”

“I don’t think so.”

He nodded again, and went to the telephone. The cab company said that a car would be there in a few minutes.

Steve watched her finish dressing. They were both quiet. He wondered if she felt as awkward as he felt. The doorbell, when
it rang, made them both jump.

“Well,” Linda said brightly.

“This date you’ve got tonight …” Steve began gruffly.

She held up her hand to stop him. “It’s with a California newspaper editor in Washington for the hearings. Tim Campbell introduced
me to him the other day.”