Black & Gold
2/1/2010

“And in other news, February is turning out to be a month filled with mysteries as will as discoveries,” said Amanda Chung, the new, bright-eyed newscaster at channel 49 News Boston.

Even she had to blink and adjust her eyes to make sure that what she was reading off of the teleprompter was correct.

“Paleontologists in Australia have discovered a species of amphibious fish thought to be long extinct in the Macquarie Marshes. The fish, called Quadramarineterapods, seem to be your average fish when in the water, but can extract four legs from their bodies and walk on land, similarly to how a turtle can retract and extract it’s head from it’s shell. The ancient fish was known to have walked the Earth during the Triassic period. Its extinction may be due to overconsumption by the dinosaurs.”

“Well isn’t that interesting,” said Bob Carter, Amanda’s co-caster. “I guess that’s one for all the women who said they’d only go out with me when fish walk.”

They both shared a cued jovial chuckle and returned to the teleprompter.

“In addition to that, Zoologists in Kenya say they have discovered a clan of apes that seem to have developed a form of communication that is close to the phonetics required for human language,” Carter said. “According to the Zoologists, the apes have been observed in their natural habitat emitting sounds that are not recognized as usual ape calls but noises that sound like they could be primitive forms of speech. Tests have been done on these apes that confirm that they are in fact average apes at the molecular level, but Zoologists say that this still may be a sign of evolution in apes.”

“Forget freaky Friday, this year it’s freaky February,” Amanda said. “For more information on these stories, go to http://mass49.com.”

Damien shook his head as he switched off the television. The news reports just kept getting stranger and stranger. He really didn’t believe that they could top their reports last week about multiple rogue comets being spotted at the North Pole and saltwater rain in Dubai, but apparently, they could.

He knew Leila would enjoy these reports. She lived and breathed for the strange and unusual.  Then only benefit to collecting these tidbits of information was that he’d be able to tell her all about them as they lay in bed, entwined in each other.

He would tell her about the rain and then she would go on a tangent about how salt-water rain is geologically impossible. He would snort and she would laugh. Then he would pull her forward and she would straddle him. And they would begin to make love again.

They would be locked up away from the world for days. And he would only let her go after having fallen asleep, but one arm would still be draped over her, just to make sure she was still here.

Leila was a solider. She was coming home from her third consecutive tour in Iraq. The last one was supposed to be her last, before she got stop lossed and sent back.

Damien couldn’t help but remember the argument they had after she’d told him the news. He relived the deflation of his heart as he secretly slipped the blue suede box that held her engagement ring back into his pocket. He couldn’t bear to try and give it to her. She always told him that she wanted to be out of active duty before they got married. And three and a half years later, they were still waiting to start their lives together.

Damien’s foot tapped in anticipation. He sat a chair from the dining room table right in the middle of foyer so he would be the first thing she saw when she entered the house. He stood and paced for a while. Put his hands in his pockets and took them out. He buried his face in his palms and slid his hands down slowly, sat down, and repeated the process again.

Mid face palm he saw the bright lights of a vehicle passing by.  He stood, stoned like a statue, waiting to hear the telltale slamming of a car door, the trapping of combat boots against the concrete, the turn of the doorknob.  But there was nothing. Damien sighed and sat down again. The emotional drain aging his face within seconds as his brow furrowed with worry.

Until his direct vision suddenly went black as two small palms covered his eyes. He jumped up with a start and leapt out of his seat, turned and there she was, a tiny little thing drowning in military camouflage, a million watt smile and gogrgeous dark eyes beaming back at him.

He said nothing. She said nothing. They just grabbed each other. He hoisted her up onto his hips and she wrapped her legs around him. All that could be heard was small grunts and squeaks indicating how tight they were holding on to each other. As if they didn’t make them, it would make the embrace less effectful.

As he held her, the smell of grime and roses filled his nostrils. No amount of active duty could take away the girl in her. And he loved that about her. He loved how she fit in his arms.  He loved the contrast of her soft delicate skin from the rough material of her uniform. He loved that she’d let down her bouncy curls just so they could rub against his face. He loved that she was back with him and would never leave again. He just loved her.

He set her down and they still hadn’t spoken a word, both just grinning at each other like school children. His heart raced as he realized it was finally time, and the déjà vu of this moment of him slipping his hand into his right pocket and lowering himself to one knee in succession was bittersweet. He was tall enough to reach up and wipe away the tear forming in the corner of her eye. And then he opened the tiny box and presented her with her long awaiting ring. A ring he chose specifically because it reminded him of her. Her dark eyes that seemed like black pools of infinity, specled with flecks of gold that indicated her livelyness. The ring, a 2 carat solitare set in a glossy onyx stone, on a gleaming gold band. She grinned wildly and bobbed her head rapidly to indicate a yes. He stood and slipped the ring onto her petite finger.

They embraced again, and kissed. This time more gently, and carefully. She wrapped her arms around his waist and he softly wiped more tears from her cheek.
When they finally broke apart and she finally opened her mouth to speak. Damien couldn’t help but laugh at her first choice of words.

“I need a shower.”

“Yeah, you do!” he replied, and quickly dodged a swat from her tiny hand.

She nestled herself back into the nook of his arm as they trudged up the stairs together.
Once in their room, Damien went to the bathroom and turned on the shower while Leila maneuvered out of her fatigues. She began to tell him about extra paper work she had to go through before she was officially discharged, which is what held her up. He replied that this must truly have been her last tour, because there was no such hassle in previous times.

“It definitely is,” she said, as she walked into the doorway of the bathroom and leaned against the frame.

Under her uniform she wore pink lacy unmentionables, an ongoing inside joke between the two, and Damien chuckled when he saw her.

She stretched her hand forward and admired her ring.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“I love it,” she said. “I love you.”

“And I love you,” he said.

She walked toward him and stopped between his sprawled legs, tipping his chin upward and kissing him gingerly on the lips. He wrapped his arms around her, assertively grabbing her firm, round backside and then drawing his hands up and down her back. In a fluid motion, her bra was unhooked and she shrugged it down past her shoulders. She hoisted his arms up as an indication that he should stand and he did. She slipped her arms under his shirt and rolled it up as she caressed his torso and chest. Her hands felt like tiny fireballs on his skin, soft and hot.

He almost still didn’t believe she was there. He had to be dreamimg, hallucinating, anything that would give a logical explanation as for why he felt so good at the moment. And why the hole that had been continually hollowing his heart was rapidly filling with contentment.

He began to kiss her. From her shoulder blades, to her chest - down between her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. And as he kissed he slowly drew her panties down over the swell of her hips. And he lifted her leg onto his shoulder and finally kissed between her thighs. She closed her eyes, bit her lip and purred softly, running her hands through his hair and guiding his movements as his tongue flicked up and down on her. It was all about her right now and he didn’t mind. He reveled in her tiny squeals of pleasure and steadied her when her knees buckled. And when she was close she hesitantly jerked his head away and drew him up to his full height.

She unfasted his pants and shrugged them down until they dropped to his ankles. She preferred hand play to drive him crazy and ran her hands over his torso and cupped him as she took the rest of him into her mouth. She had no such luck at keeping his steady and he stumbled back and slumped onto the sink. He felt her giggle reverberate as she bobbed on his head. Her tongue on the underside of his shaft. Kissises and licks – and the length of him in her mouth. And she stopped just short of his climax, just as she’d made him.

By this time the running shower next to them had the room filled with steam. Without much effort, they were both sticky and hot when they connected again. The taste of each other swirling between their tongues. And the water stained their skin with arousal as they stepped into the shower.  The combination of hard and soft connecting as he entered her. She pressed up against the cool tile. His one hand gripping the sweating wall while the other guided the momentum of their thrusts on her backside. Her nails dug into his back and her knees buckled around his. His rythym and strength beating against her. Carnal and sensual. Frenzied and desperate. Binging, after having been starved of each other for so long. Grunts, moans and exasperated I love yous drowned out the sound of the cascading water as they both simultaneously fell over the edge. Her legs locked tightly around his waist and his knees finally buckling. Him slumping slowly into the shallow pool of the tub. They held one another, faces buried in each other’s shoulders. Body pulses slowly decreasing. But the heat of the water still beat on them with assaulting force.

Somewhere between their first and third love making session, they ended up out on the balcony overlooking their bedroom, nestled in one of the wicker chairs Leila had set out there for such an occasion. Her head rested on his shoulder and his head rested on her head as they gazed at the night sky and identified stars together. They lived just far enough on the outskirts of Boston where the city lights didn’t disturb the glittering light shower of the sky and they could see nothing but contrasting pin pricks for lightyears. It was Leila’s favorite thing about their house. She loved that their neighbor was Canis Major and Sirius could be seen at any vantage point in their upstars. Damien loved the mystical quality to her personality. That extra that he didn’t quite understand. That made her extra sensual, extra caring, extra beautiful, extra anything and everything. The extra soft velveteen of her skin glided inconspicuously over his as she snuggled closer to him and her cool sigh indiacted that she had fallen asleep. He scooped her up into his arm and carried her to their bed. And as she slept, he played with he curls and speculated on exactly how he had become so lucky.

His only regret is that they didn’t meet sooner. He reminisced on seeing her in the tiny ominous pub that he’d ducked into to escape the rain. She was being toasted by her friends upon her enlistment.

All she wanted to do was make a better life for herself. To gain the dicipline and know how to become a doctor and change the world. If he had known her, If he had been there, he could have helped her. With the combination of his family’s money and his own success, he was more than capable of taking care of her. Funding her schooling to help her realize her dreams.

Or make it so that she wouldn’t have to work at all. She always wanted to be a mother and have a big family. She wanted to do corny things like name their children Leilo and Damiea. She wanted to send them off to school with crustless sandwhiches and make them Christmas cookies to leave out for Santa. She wanted to fix their booboos and protect them from closet monsters. In essense, give them everything that she never had.

And he wondered what their children would look like. He wouldn’t mind them having his mousy brown hair, if they had her dark enthralling eyes. If their skin came out as a mellow mix of his cream and her caramel, presenting the ultimate combination of their love. They would have his height and her cerub face. His nose and her curls. And he would love them. She would love them. And the idea of this carried him off to sleep.

And his REM mind was hyperactive with thoughts of their wedding. Of their life together and the thought of how he’d give up every dime of his riches to be paid every morning to wake up to the currency of her smile. How she stretched and wiped the sleep from her eyes like a child. And ruffled through her curly bed head. But how the shilouette of her curves through her sheer night gown showed exactly how much of a woman she was. His dreams were vivid. How it filmed to him. Years of love making. Years of drifting off on the wicker balcony chairs. Years of stargazing. Years of joy, laughter, happiness, dissapointment and sorrow, which would be okay, as long as they got to spend each moment together.

His mind struggled with him between the anticipation of waking up and experiencing this wonderful life and staying asleep and reveling in the wonderful dream. He tossed and turned as he fought the return to reality. He couldn’t go. Not just yet. He was so happy, so in love. It was so perfect. He couldn’t go … She, couldn’t go.

Damien was jerked out of sleep with a start. Cold sweat trickled down his back and down his forehead and his shoulders. And the pillow behind him was drenched as well. The overwhelming lonelyness overtook him as he glanced to his right and her side of the bed was untouched. The drapes of the door to the balcony remained closed, as they had since she left. Across the room on his dresser sat the tiny blue suede box that had never been opened.

Damien’s foot tapped in anticipation. He sat a chair from the dining room table right in the middle of foyer so he would be the first thing she saw when she entered the house. He stood and paced for a while. Put his hands in his pockets and took them out. Buried his face in his palms and slid his hands down slowly. Sat down, and repeated the process again.

Mid face palm he saw the bright lights of a vehicle passing by.  He stood, stoned like a statue. And there they were, the telltale slamming of a car door, the trapping of combat boots against the concrete. But conversely, the doorbell then rang. Damien chuckled. He knew she’d made it difficult for him somehow, that was just her humor. He swung the door open with enough enertia for its to rebound a bit. As did his smile, slowly draining away as he stood face to face with two fatigued women instead of his one.

One woman held in her arms a neatly folded American flag atop a setof Army Greens. The other who carried nothing cleared her throat.

“Damien McGuire?”

“Yes,” he said. Only giving the women the corner of his eye. He could not bare to look at them directly as the rest of his heart hollowed out and crumbled in his chest. And his breath quickened as she continued to speak.

“It is my deepest regret to inform you that Sergeant Leila Thompson was killed in the line of active duty. Her ro-v was bombed during a mission to transport supplies to neighboring camps.”

There was nothing. Nothing to be said. Nothing to think. Nothing to feel. Damien stared through the women was if they were not there. As if he could will her to appear, push past them and ensure him that she was okay.

After a pause, the woman continued yet again. She explained that Leila’s parents has been notified and that they planned to collect her body when it was brought back in a few days. But they requested that her belongings go to him. He wanted to scream at the women, that the belongings meant nothing to him without the person who should be in them. He wanted to curse them for being there when she was not.

“We’re very sorry for your loss. Leila was an amazing person,” said the other woman said, giving his a small look of sympathy while the other women remained stoic, which he then realized was a forced expression. Of course it would be. Leila was that kind of person who impacted everyone she met. Of course they would all be affected by the loss of her.

They turned in unison and made their way back to their car. The light flash bright and dissipated as they back out of the drive way.

Damien couldn’t help but remember the argument they had after she’d told him the news. He relived the deflation of his heart as he secretly slipped the blue suede box that held her engagement ring back into his pocket.

“I don’t understand why you need to go back, again,” he said, hand encircled around the box. He wondered if he gave it to her right then and there if there was something she could do that would allow her to stay.

“It’s my duty Damien. I’ve made a pledge to my country.”

“What about us? He said. “How long will we have to put our lives on hold for this stupid war?”

“Not all of us are privlidged enough to not be affected by this stupid war,” she said.

Before he could argue back, he took his hands and forced his mild blue eyes to lock with her dark ones. She did this on purpose because she knew how mesmerized he was by the gold flecks. How they captivated him and put him directly under her spell. All five foot three of her force to be reckoned with. Of unparalleled strength, brazen beauty and indisputable reason.

“I just don’t know how I could live if anything were to happen to you,” he said.

“I will be okay,” she said. “I gone and I’ve come back to you. I’ve gone again and I’ve come back to you, again. We’re supposed to be together.”

Her smile quelled his fears. And her arms around his waist reassured him. He never once thought that she was more trying to reassure herself than she was him.

He stepped into the cool night breeze and looked up. The stars spread across the sky like millions of tiny fireflies that you could simply reach up and extinguish. He searched for Sirius. It was her favorite star. And never once had he been able to find it without her help. He scanned the sky, side to side, up and down, but Sirius evaded him. He slumped down onto the step, her flag and uniform tumbling down a few steps below, and buried his face in his hands. He did not cry but the pressure of his hands against his face offered some kind of weird comfort.

He sat there for a while. Images flashed on the insides of his eyes. Of her last day at home. How they sat on the couch, ate junkfood and cuddled. Of when he saw her off at the airplane hanger. And how they simulated the V-J Day kiss. And everyone around them applauded. That was the power of their love. It brought a smile to peoples faces and made others believe they could find the same. Leila’s smile, contagious. Her laugh, infectious. And when he was with her, he was the same way. And it reverberated and between the two so intensly that he swore their love alone made the word a better place.

She slipped her arms around his arm and rested her head on his shoulder. They sat like that for a moment. They were so still he could feel her blink. They did not move, but she spoke.

“You’re going to be okay,” she said.

“How do you know that?” he asked.

“Because, I’m home. And we’re going to be married. Whenever you get the courage to give me that box you carry around like a lifeline,” she chuckled.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“You’re gone baby. You’re dead.”

He felt her quick exhale as unraveled her arm from his and stood up. He looked up and her with glass eyes of which he fought the pricks of tears from because, it had to be her. The way she tugged at his arm to urge him to stand. The way she melted into his nook as they walked together. The warmth of her body heat penetrated his skin. The dual sound of their footsteps as they made their way upstairs rang through his ears.

Once they were in their bedroom she stretched his shirt up above his head and shrugged his pants down. And urged him into bed. And she skipped around to the other side and snuggled up to him as close as she could, to where their noses touched. She stroked his hair until his eyes could no longer fight the heaviness. And the last thing he saw, were her beautiful eyes, of black and gold.

Black and Gold
Black and Gold

-fin-