JUDAS KISS- Six- Lost Friend ✑ ✑ ✑ ✑ ✑

Helen breathed a sigh of relief when Steve left. She was both happy and sad! She recalled

the day she had cut her hair and colored it dark brown. She, herself, was extremely devastated! It was two days before the New year. She knew that Steve would be home shortly. She knew they would most likely have a fight over it; but she did it anyway. She was tired of being the prisoner of her look and therefore of her past! She had an invitation for the New Year's party. This time she decided to go. So after graduation and only two days before the party, she went to a beauty salon and practically changed her appearance! Even the woman in the beauty parlour told her, "Oh, my God, how can you cut this beautiful hair?'

"My husband wants me to cut it!" She said It with a derisive smile on her lips. The woman believed her.

"O, most men like long, blond hair!"

"Sorry, not my man!" She cut her hair a little longer than shoulder length, but all straight and without layering it. The party was held in a hotel in North Dallas. She bought a black dress, a long crepe dress with layers of chiffon over it. The neck was cut in V shape in both front and back, no sleeves; however she had a chiffon long shawl for covering her shoulders and arm. It was a beautiful and sexy dress with crepe lining and full chiffon skirt which covered the slit which was cut all the way to her thighs yet the chiffon overlay cover it. She had never owned these kind of gowns before except the time she worked for Roger. But she did not consider those gowns hers. Those were part of her job. She knew that Steve was coming home in mid January, so this was her last chance to enjoy herself for the first time since she had left Chicago.

She had only called home once in the last eight years. The conversation was cold; like total strangers; but one thing that she learned from it was that Charlotte, her sister, was married and had two children, and was divorced, and now was going with another man! Oh, poor, needy Charlotte!

She drove her car around eight o'clock to the hotel. She had no idea that night she would see Jacob, the young boy, who had run away with her from Chicago, who had worked in Safeway Grocery store with her, who had spent the nights in the shelter of the church with her until she was lured to leave with Roger without even saying goodbye to him. They had never been intimate in the three months they knew each other. She knew that he wanted it but was to shy to ask!

When she saw him after all these years, she thought: "What good comes of giving people things they don't need, like when Steve tells me that I get his salary from Air force? I don't need his money, but I have needed a friend for so many years! I am surprised why I have been able to prosper, if it is only to be friendless..."

She noticed that night that cutting her hair and coloring it was a good idea, since Jacob did not recognize her. He saw her, they almost came face to face, and he walked on! He had grown to be a very handsome, almost beautiful man. She finally found a man she could love even though she had known him in his girlhood!!

To Be Continued

JUDAS KISS- Six- Lost Friend ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

When Steve came in January of 1967 for his second leave for R and R from Air force, he was a changed man. He looked tan, handsome; he had lost a lot of weight, but his body was all muscles. Every woman in street looked at him, and perhaps wanted him. Helen's neighbors craved this good looking man.

He found almost Helen happy, yet deep, deep inside her grayish blue eyes he could see some sadness, some kind of mystery, too!

"What is it now? You must be happy that you've finished college and even found a job! I know what is wrong? All of a sudden you have nothing to do! You're bored! May be we just don't wait until I come home for good and start a family. I think now it's time to do it!"

Fight began right away. Now he had become tough and rigid. He had also changed, not for better but for worse. He was not the same Steve of the beginning of their marriage that worshipped her no matter what she did to him. He thought that tact of toughness he tried with her, worked with her. After all if he could run his unit with all the men with different personality, from different part of the country without any problem, why couldn't he take control of his personal life with this woman , whom he had fallen in love with and still loved her? He almost ordered her this time that when he would return next time, she had to be in a better and bigger apartment!

"You must! You must be ready to have a family or I divorce you!"

This was the first time in their two years marraige that he acted forcefuly with her. But she was not a type of a woman to just listen to a macho soldier, even though he was her husband, and to back off!

One of his complain was that why she had cut her hair and colored it brown!

"Did you do it to hurt me? I liked your natural blond and long hair. It matched your eyes. Why, why did you do it? Did you do it to hurt me?"

Helen was outrageous. She did not want to tell him in order for her to socialize, she had to change her appearance; that she was frightened that out of bad luck to face one of Roger's clients one day, and to be recognized by him! Instead she began a fight about her freedom, about that he acted old fashioned, that he wanted her to be like his mother, ...

"What is the matter with you? Do you want me to call you all the way to Vietnam, if I can find you, and ask your permission about anything I do? You knew what kind of woman I was! Why did you marry me? I just can't tolerate this! You want to divorce me next year; I want a divorce now! Do you think I am one of your soldeirs? No one can boss me around! Forget about these two years! Think it never happened. I am not your type! I truly want a divorce!"

How quickly Steve backed up from being a commander! The word divorce, which he had said it first to scare her off, was too much for him to bear. He saw the seriousness in her tone of voice, eyes, and attitude! He knew it was crazy to love a woman this much while she did not care for him. He ended up to appolgize. The rest of his stay was almost peaceful. Their nights together was still wonderful. For him, the hot blooded, hungry American soldeir, it was something beyond this world! She would become a different person at night! It was their love making that made him to tolarete their day time's fight. He could not wait for night to arrive or to end!

The day before he left after twenty days, he went to see his parents alone.

"Helen had a job interview." That is how he answered his parents' inquiry about his wife!

To Be Continued

JUDAS KISS- Six- Lost Friend ☁ ☁ ☁ ☁

They fought all day, the day Steve left. In fact the entire twelve days of his stay, they argued during the day time and made love at night. It seemed as though they could not enjoy the God given desire of intimacy between a man and woman without a big fight before it! He began getting sick of this arrangement. Helen acted at night in bed as though they had no problem during the day. She was a dream lover for any hot blooded man, who was also a soldier and had not seen her for a year! She never pretended like some women did! She truly enjoyed their love making! But when morning came, they were back at it! She always found something to begin the fight; and if she did not, he found something for argument. It was as though they could not be together without a brawl!

✔

By the end of fall Semester of 1966, right before Christmas Holiday, she was done with her graduate studies and thesis. She got very high marks from her professors and graduated before the New Year of 1967, right before Steve would come home for his second leave.

She had already done many interviews and the chance of becoming a community college teacher was on horizon for her. Her professors wrote beautiful recommendation letters on her behalf, so she could add them to her resume.

Her vitae was impeccable; a young, beautiful woman, with master degree, with a GAP of four, married to a Captain, soon to become a Major, and pilot in Air force. She almost had no problem finding more than one job. But she wanted to teach. That was her dream since she was a little girl. She finally accepted an offer from a community college which was not very far from her apartment and decided to begin working in fall. She thought that after all these years of hard work and horrible things she had gone through, she deserved to rest till fall, and just enjoy herself without going to school or working. She decided even during this time off, she perhaps would get the better and bigger apartment that Steve insisted on!

For the next six months, for the first time in her life, she had nothing to do. Her college was over. That was as far as she wanted to go! She had thought about enrolling for a PhD program, but changed her mind very quickly.

"I'm tired of studying! Besides now I have a job, a real career!"

Work would begin in fall. But she was lonely for now; she felt very deserted and friendless! She never went anywhere! She had never had any friend in her apartment!

To Be continued