There was nothing significant about the day - I'd gotten up, had breakfast with the kids before they headed off to school, read the front page and some of the comics, made a piece of toast and headed off to work. Once there, I'd grabbed a cup of coffee, booted up, and started deleting through the daily pile of spam and much of the formatted stuff from within the corporation.
Clicking through the list, looking for significant failures in our system, calls for help from my far-flung managers, taskers from my taskaholic boss, I hit one that said, "Hello from Becky Andersen Donley." It stopped me dead in my tracks. Was it spam? How would that happen? Checking that no one was approaching my door, I read on:
"Hey, if this is you, this is Becky, aka Airman Andersen, from the Air Force - I'm hoping you remember. I've been meaning to contact you, if for no other reason than to say "how's it?" It just dawned on me that this year marks 10 years since you and I last saw each other! God, where did the time go? I've run out of G.I. Bill time!! How the hell did that happen????? Well, what all have you been doing?
"I ran across the old squadron's reunion information, and there you were - bigger than life - still making fun with words, explaining what the alumni could expect at this summer's reunion. I'm so sorry I didn't see the info in time to attend - I understand the reunion was a smashing success thanks to your efforts, as well. Sounds like it was a blast, and I enjoyed seeing the photos - was that you in the ball cap at the barbeque? I think so, although you're way in the background, and if so, you haven't changed a bit!
"Speaking of photos, I've attached a few for your viewing pleasure from my unofficial farewell party, which of course you missed, being an officer and all, and my party definitely NOT being for officers. I cannot thank you enough, even now, for all you did to make my time in the squadron so memorable and good for me. You shielded me from a bunch of bullshit, if I can say that now, and I especially remember your comments at my official farewell party about how 'Natural Disasters Seem to Follow Becky Wherever She Goes.'
"People were falling off their chairs they were laughing so hard (in the beginning), and then the trepidation set in and the laughter got v-e-e-r-r-r-ry NERVOUS and sporadic... you are a great speaker, Dan, and I could almost hear the relief when you didn't go in several directions you could have. Always the gentleman. And you had that audience in the palm of your hand. Not to mention the nice words you said about me. I still have the video of that momentous occasion..."
The email went on, but I was more taken by the photo, of that young airman who worked for me in the squadron. She wasn't the classic bimbo, busty type that Hefner thinks make up our fantasies, but she was blond and tanned and young and attractive by all measures, and she had a spark in her eyes that broadcasted sex appeal in every direction, or at least in mine. We had flirted subtlely, nothing inappropriate, just the more cheerful greetings, the knowing glance shared during "Dilbert Moments," that sort of thing. I was married, she wasn't - I was an officer, she wasn't - I was older than she by 8-10 years or so. So it had been not even a flirtation by any standards, just a vibe thing that made the day a little brighter. The photo was of her in a bikini top, one that I'd never seen - officers weren't in a position to see subordinates so attired usually - and she looked stupendous, just enough cleavage to beckon, to leave it open to whether she was offering a come-on or just being innocently and marvelously attractive.
Then the photo called to mind an encounter with her that was distinctly embarrassing for me, yet mildly erotic. My commanding officer then was a real bozo - great braggart when things were going great, and a blame-laying hip-shooter when they weren't - the antithesis of the buck-stops-here leader that we needed at that time. Air Force regs explicitly required females to wear appropriate underwear, i.e. bras, with their uniforms. Normally not a problem, the lack of a bra became evident especially when the uniform for various work details was t-shirt and dungarees. Becky had neglected to wear a bra so often it had become almost expected, and all of us males tried not to blatantly stare, and all of us officers pretty much mentally looked the other way while "eyeballing" her surreptitiously, more interested in the view than in a strict interpretation of good order and discipline.
One day the skipper actually noticed something other than his career path, after some sort of screw-up that the wing commander had chewed on him about. Casting about for a target, he spied her bralessness, and I was soon directed to tell her to "get those damn tits covered up!"
Reluctantly, and without much of a plan, I called her into my office, where at least the "counseling" would be audibly in private, and glassed in from the passageway, so safe as well. I could so clearly remember the outline of her nipples straining against her t-shirt, with her innocently reporting to me, "You wanted to see me, Mr. Ford?", as she closed the door behind her. I don't recall the words, and I expect that I was probably stammering my way through the reminder and caution that she should wear a bra on duty.
I do recall her blushing appropriately and saying she'd been unaware that she was making me uncomfortable and promising to adhere to the regs. Meanwhile, her eyes laughed at me, silently but clearly saying, "And if you were doing your job, just how did you notice... and what would you like to do about it... really... and as a matter of fact yes, so would I." And all the while breathing steadily, making her breasts rise and fall, with those nipples... Obviously, it had made an impression, although that's as close as I got.
But for that moment, we both knew that the chemistry was there, and that we both wanted to go with it, and that we wouldn't. Some time later, she was embroiled in a dispute with a more senior enlisted member. It fell to me to sort things out, and I did, not taking sides yet not relying on seniority to decide right or might. In the process, it came out that the senior enlisted person had misused his (or her) rank in the past, which led to a poor evaluation and transfer.
In retrospect, I think that fed something like a combination of gratitude and father figure projection in her, and by the time of her farewell party she was showing all signs of a crush - I was glad to avoid anything further, knowing how dangerous it would be, but still couldn't deny the chemistry.
Over the next couple of months after that internet rediscovery, we exchanged occasional emails, and the flirtation got more overt. She emailed me other photos, all very proper, which I raved about and which led to a whole new round of double entendres. She'd turned into a more mature woman, still flashing those sexy eyes, still radiating sexuality and love of life. She carped about having gained weight, and I admitted I'd lost hair as well as expanded my beltline (although not much, I was pleased to keep to myself).
I also learned that she'd married, no kids. It was a bit vague as to whether she was still married or not, and I left my side of that unsaid as well. Meanwhile, there was an unmentioned understanding that this was between two old coworkers who'd felt the electricity between us at the time and had done nothing about it then. Now each of us was recalling that interest, wondering a bunch of what-if's, and thinking about renewing the "relationship" with fewer if any restrictions of propriety.
Eventually, about six months later, my company sent me across the country to where she lived, near Washington DC, on a business trip. I wrestled with whether or not to say I was coming, whether or not to limit this to a fantasy occasional email flirtation, whether or not to go for the mutual attraction I knew we'd shared a decade before.
When the time came, I cheerfully left town, flew to DC, and checked into a hotel near Dupont Circle, without mentioning my arrival to her. The itinerary didn't really allow for all that much off-time, but I had the last evening in town free. I had told my cohorts I was going to meet an old squadronmate for dinner on the last evening. That done, I called Becky the day before, reached her at work, and invited her to dinner.
Thankfully, she bought my "sudden trip, little time, free tomorrow, then back" story, and we agreed she'd arrive at my hotel (since I hadn't needed to have a rental car) at 6. I told her to call my cell phone when she was close and that I'd meet her in the lobby bar.
I finished my last meeting at 3, took a cab back to the hotel (one of those upscale suite places - very nice deal our company's got with their chain), and decided to sublimate a bit with a run. I stripped down, brushed my teeth to banish the coffee of the day, changed to my shorts, a t-shirt and running shoes, and hit the Washington neighborhoods for a little over a half hour. I re-thought through the frequently imagined scenario while running, deciding that it was best all around to play it straight, take her to dinner, enjoy the flirtation, but go no further - that it would be best for us both that way.
I got back to the hotel, wringing with sweat, and went up to the room, dragged in using the standard, old-style key, and stripped to the buff, tossing the gym gear into a hotel laundry bag in the empty one of two closets - I'd attend to them later. After 15 minutes of cool-down, checking the TV channels, and setting the alarm for my early flight the next day, I'd stopped sweating, felt pretty damn virtuous for having run, and went into the shower, a glassed in arrangement next to a big whirlpool-style bath tub.
I'd soaped up, gradually increasing the temperature to pretty hot, and had steamed up the bathroom, when I heard her voice, "Dan? Is that you in there?"
"Yo! You're early," I yelled out, recognizing her voice immediately. That Californian accent was undiminished, despite her now living in the Capital. How the hell had she cracked the code on which room, gotten in, and so forth was less a mystery than a reminder of the crafty efficiency of America's enlisted force.
"Not that early," she called back.
