JUDAS KISS- Six- Lost Friend ❈ ❈ ❈

Steve came home for a thirty days leave towards the end of January of 1966. Helen still was living in the same apartment on Mimosa Road.

It was a whole year that they had not seen each other; however Steve got a very cold welcome from his wife, as if she was saying, "Why are you here? Why are you disrupting my peace?"

He complained why she had not changed the apartment. She had promised him that she would get a bigger and nicer place by the time he would be back for his R and R! He had arranged that she would receive his salary from Air force every month. So now she did not even have to get o the black, little bag with its unending money. After all these years, she still did not know how much money was in the bag. She was a frugal spender! Since she could not deposit the whole money and make some interest on it, she was very careful in her spending habit!

"You have money to get a better place for us! when I come back next year, or perhaps retire one day, I want us to have a family, to buy a home! But at least for now you can move to a better and bigger place! What is the money spending on?"

This was the first day of Steve's thirty days leave. He said this after a nice dinner that she had bought it from a restaurant, a few glasses of wine, and much pleasurable intimacy! She never turned down their love making!

They were lying down. Their sweat and body odor were mixed together! Neither one wanted to go the bathroom and wash out. She was about to fall asleep when Steve said the things about the money, home, family, and bigger and nicer place for now. Sleep escaped her right away. She sat on bed, exposing her naked body.

"What did you say? I don't need your damn money! Why would I want to pay more money for apartment while you're not even here? you talk about family, as if it is only your decision! Why do you want to bring children to this world? Everywhere is full of darkness!"

Steve also sat on the bed. He was the commander of his unit, a pilot, a Captain in Air force with twelve airplanes and pilots under his command. They all liked him and obeyed him. But at home, he was no match to this woman, his wife!

He did not stay the entire thirty days off he had; and left after only twelve days. The day he left, they were supposed to go to his parents', so he can see his parents. But he called them while Helen standing next to the window:

"I apologize! Something has come out. I must leave today!"

They never believed him, yet they went to the airport to see their son off. Helen was not there!

To Be Continued

JUDAS KISS- Six- Lost Friend ✾ ✾

When Steve left on that cold January day of 1965, just twenty days after his marriage to Helen, she took a deep breath! She thanked God that she would be free again even if it was

temporary!

"I think about my life with Steve later!"

All she looked into was the same, yet they were changed. There was an extreme chasm between today and yesterday! Past for her was when she had not met Steve. Then she was responsible for herself and her college. Those days everything was simple, spontaneous, filled with light. Today she was a married woman; but she was alone in a dark and tainted place! It was this isolation that unnerved her!

She cried when she came home from college and noticed that Steve was gone, even though she knew that he had left! She was certain that his family most likely had questioned him about the absent of his new wife at the airport, specially when one's husband was going to war! perhaps the questioning went like this:

"Where is Helen? Is she okay?"

And she knew that Steve's pride and conceit had stopped him to confess to his family about his unfeeling wife!

"What if he gets killed in Vietnam?" Helen asked herself. "Would I be sad? Would I feel guilty?"

Nonetheless, the agony of her own behavior towards Steve on the day that he was deployed and left for war, did not last even one day! The next day she was her old self again, care free, ambitious, and ready to get her master degree. However one thing puzzled her more than anything else! "Why did I marry him?"

She truly did not know the answer. Was it because she had found an ordinary, innocent man, so she could take her revenge of other men, who had changed her life for ever, on him? Was it because she loved him? No, she really did not love him! He was too simple for her, too good for her. She was used to mean and dirty men, the men who only wanted to take advantage of women even if that particular woman was an eight years old child of that man, or the girlfriend of a forty years old, black pimp?

She was still afraid to socialize with friends just in case to see someone from her past life, from the one and half years being with Roger and going with men that he had forced her! Her in- laws called her a few times after Steve had left. They invited her to different events. Each time she found an excuse and turned down the invitation. Christmas came. Again she refused to go to Steve's parents' home. After that, they left her alone; never called her again!

To Be Continued