Another Springtime Ch. 02

Chapter 2: Our First Night Together

"Dace?" Her voice was soft and low in the darkness, but also burdened with an unmistakable trembling. The door was open between our rooms though the beds were such that we could not see each other. She had wanted to leave it open so I didn't seem so very far away, and asked if that would be all right. It was fine with me.

"It's OK, Christine. I'm right here."

"But, I'm so scared... I can't sleep."

There was a long silence.

"Can you hold me a little like you did before?"

Does the sun come up in the morning?

The image, of course, was very rich in potential, and in more ways than one. She had had no appropriate nightclothes and ended up wearing the top to my new linen pajamas, wrapping her much smaller form in the tent-like expanse of the soft linen, being incredibly feminine and delectable in the process without even trying. The top reached down to her knees almost and she seemed at once both modestly clothed and most deliciously indisposed. I wondered whether I dare trust myself. Even for the dedicated and iron-willed there is a practical limit. Yet, when duty calls....

"OK, I'm coming over to you." When I stepped through the doorway she was sitting up on the bed in my pajama top with her fists under her chin and hugging herself, trembling. The sheet and blanket were gathered around up to her waist and she was modest and presentable, though with her long hair and big brown eyes in the soft light she simply could not be other than heart-stopping. I sat down carefully on the side of the bed and she didn't move a muscle but just looked up at me.

"Is anything wrong, Christine?"

"It's just that everything is so scary and... and when you held me this afternoon it made things warm and safe." Her voice was so piteously child-like and trusting. "Just for a little while, please?" as if she were somehow imposing a great and exhausting labor upon me.

I'm sure she had not given a single thought to the mechanics of how to do that, nor to what other dangers it might lead in the process. She was simply frightened and was asking the only person available to help in the only way she knew. OK, keep a clear head here. Her child-like supplication was sweet and trusting, and innocent of machinations of any kind. In other words, she was irresistible.

"All right, let's get comfortable and I'll try to help you relax and rest some." If that was a good start, my very first move was a mistake. In trying to arrange the covers to put them between us so she could lay down she must have felt I was pulling them off her legs and she panicked and clutched them to her. Quickly I turned away to reach across to the chair for the second blanket, trying to ignore her reaction. I had no intention of embarrassing her at all. I arranged the second blanket so she could lay with her back up against my side with her head on my shoulder. All prepared, I lay down on the edge of her bed and patted her place next to me in invitation. Now her fears of one danger were replaced and overridden by her anxiety in the face of one much closer at hand, I'm sure. She was frozen in place, one hand over her mouth, her eyes boring into me with alarm, her other hand still clutching the covers at her waist.

I waited patiently for her to decide what she wanted to do. Her eyes had the expression of a doe trapped in a hunter's spotlight with nowhere to run. For me her vulnerability added a sweet innocence to her beauty that I found was very alluring. It was good that she could not read the thoughts that raced through my mind and my struggles to control them.

Without a thought in advance I began to hum a soft tune, "Come to me my melancholy baby...." Singing had never been a strong suit and I surprised myself. I wasn't sure what reaction I would get. "Cuddle up and don't be blue." Her facial expression in the dim light was just enchanting. "Smile, my honey, dear, and... I'll kiss away each tear," and her countenance softened and I could see a little smile curling the corners of her mouth, and then she moved carefully to lie down beside me.

I tucked more of the covers between us, for her sake and for mine, but her head rested now lightly on my outstretched upper arm. How to balance one's feeling of tenderness and concern for another is almost always a challenge; I could think of no situation nearly as fraught with pitfalls and dangers as the one with which I now wrestled. This girl's psyche seemed to me more fragile than any I had ever encountered, her recent experience quite a rude shock even for an adult, and her situation now so very anxious and lonely. And for all that she was so exquisitely feminine in every way.

My assignment... focus on my assignment, my job! My job, I could easily see, was to soothe and protect and make secure in mind and body... a more complex and demanding task than may at first be recognized. On one hand I wished I were several years younger... yet I could easily see that those years of marriage and fatherhood were essential training for exactly what this assignment required: patience, kindness, being always a respectful gentleman, and all the while alert and ready for battle with unseen dragons laying in wait. I had to keep coming back to my job and focusing on that for balance and direction. Whether something romantic between us might emerge in the future was an immensely intriguing concept, but it had to be set back on the shelf for now. If it came at all it would have to be at the proper time... whenever that might be... if it came at all.

She lay beside me without a word and tense as a steel rail. I lifted her hair clear of her neck and nuzzled her soft ringlets behind her ear and then kissed her lightly, enjoying the fragrance of her hair. That she had not expected, for sure, and she shivered in response. "You are a beautiful young lady, my pretty little vixen. Thank you for trusting me to take care of you. Sleep well, now."

She made no response as I rolled away onto my back and tried to focus on just being her protector and keeping things under control. Kissing her like that was perhaps not exactly a wise step towards keeping control of myself, but her indescribable beauty certainly deserved some measure of acknowledgement, even from an older man, did it not? Well, that's what I told myself, right or otherwise.

It helped to go back to my earlier line of thinking about how to proceed tomorrow and how to deal with the danger close behind us. After some while, oh, probably not more than a few minutes really, I felt her wiggle closer to me and relax, and another minute or two and her breathing was slowed and even. I guessed that she was asleep. If so, then my effort had been successful, and I was pleased with myself... and with her.

]

It was just the morning after the first night together, though nothing untoward had happened and there was nothing of which to be ashamed. Nonetheless, she had slept for a solid six hours almost without moving a muscle all with her head on my shoulder. At my age it was a most delightful phenomenon to have a beautiful young girl so indisposed and anxious for my close companionship. I think any man at any age would have felt exactly as I felt. The knight-in-shining-armor image was exhilarating, but more boisterous, dissident voices were also making themselves heard.

When she awoke and had to go to the bathroom she scooted off the bed and pulled her pajama top down around her legs and padded off daintily trying to be inconspicuous, and failing utterly. Her hair tousled and eyes shy and downcast, her natural beauty was irrepressible.

I used the interlude to answer a call as well in other bathroom, but was back in her bed as I had left it before she emerged, hoping to allow her to sleep yet longer... and prolong the sense of our close association which I was enjoying immensely. She paused at the side of the bed, perhaps unsure of herself and what she wanted. Without a word and as demurely as she could manage she crawled back under the covers and wiggled herself up against me again, with the cutest little smile of satisfaction gracing her features. Facing me now, with both hands beneath her chin again in that special way she had, she relaxed next to me again, and in a few moments her lashes drooped and she drifted off again. Her anxiety had drained her over the previous days and she was exhausted.

I was deep in thought and my mind racing on the situation in which we were enveloped, when she awoke nearly four hours later. She must have been watching me for a while before she spoke.

"My father held me once like this when I was a little girl at home. I had a – how do you say it? a scary dream in the night... and he helped me to feel safe again." Her voice was so very soft and gentle, and trusting.

I turned to face her. "Good morning, Christine. I think your father must have loved you very much." There was more I wanted to say, but the ideas were a little confused. "I think any father with a daughter like you...." What?! "Would find it easy to love you. You are a delightful young lady." There was more, much more, that wanted to speak out, but I managed to quiet those thoughts and left it at that.

She looked down and lay still and shy without saying anything.

"Did you sleep well?" I tried to divert myself from the amorous mood.

"Oh, yes! Thank you! Thank you very much for..." I could tell she didn't quite know how to say that we had lain together all through the night, "...for helping me feel more safe." There was a tentative tone in her lilt, as if she couldn't imagine where to go from here and was just waiting for me.

I could have made any of several choices, one being to hold her close and kiss her right there. She was just too cute to ignore. But I elected with great effort to broach the matter of breakfast, largely because it would be a distraction, and she brightened and sat up next to me with a smile and gathered the covers around her waist. She seemed not to be aware, but the soft linen draped itself beautifully over her full breasts. She was not wearing underwear, I knew that from having her close beside me, and now the image she presented me was breathtaking... tousled hair, thrusting breasts, and a soft smile at being rested. Magnificent!

At my asking her casually, she started telling me about her family. Then and there started the conversation that was to continue throughout the day and deepen our relationship more than either of us then comprehended.

They had a home in the country not far from Sankt Gallen (if you're looking on an English language map, look for St. Gall), and her father had been a professor at the University there and she was just finishing the Academé that spring. Her parents had brought her to the USA on a vacation trip following her graduation and they looked forward to a fun three weeks in America. It was then that her countenance collapsed in despair and anxiety.

Slowly then, with some coaxing and patience the story came out. Before boarding the flight in Zurich three strange men approached her and wanted her to come with them. They didn't say why except that someone would want her very much when they took her to him. She wasn't sure she understood what was happening – but in the telling it showed that they had frightened her – and when her father intervened the men left quickly. Then, in the hotel in D.C. the very first evening some other men knocked at their door, forced their way in.... She stopped, unable to go on. Even with her eyes closed tight the big tears welled up and ran freely down her rosy cheeks. Her little fists were clenched under her chin, and it all came flooding back to her, I could clearly see. Whatever had happened must have been a terrible nightmare. Then something broke inside her, I think, and she just sobbed uncontrollably.

I sat up next to her and like the previous evening on the sofa just pulled her across my lap and held her and let her cry her heart out.

Over the next hour I was able to put together some pieces of the puzzle between her heart wrenching tears. There was a gunshot, her mother screamed, her father slumped to the floor and the men grabbed her, put a cloth over her mouth that smelled funny and then all was black. When she woke up there was a nice lady with her to tell her she was safe now in the custody of the U. S. government. The lady told her that there had been an attempt to kidnap her but American officers had broken up the attempt and that she was safe now. The lady didn't seem to know what had happened to her parents, and then they flew to Seattle. After two days in the hotel the lady – Sally, she said her name was – had let her know gently that her parents were both dead. Later Sally brought a notebook with three papers in it, one each describing Mister X, Mister Y and Mister Z. She looked and made a choice, and the next morning I had arrived at her door.

Well, now there were more pieces of the puzzle on the table, but still not much to go on, hardly even a start.

She was limp now and resting peacefully in my embrace, her fears and sobbing having drained her once again. Gently I held a corner of the sheet up to her eyes and wicked away her last tears and wiped her nose. She curled up now in my arms, and in the course of that without realizing it she pulled her long legs out from under the covers and for a brief moment I was treated to a most enticing view. I pulled the covers up around her bare bottom to keep her warm. The glimpse was enough to short-circuit several...allthought processes – then and now – and I appreciated a pleasant moment's lull in my efforts to solve the puzzle of our affairs.

Then it was back to work.

An intelligence analyst seeks to draw from disparate fragments something that leads to a plausible explanation of the forces at work in the target situation. I didn't have many fragments, and they were certainly disparate, but the only explanation I could find that fit was that she was the target of a supplier to the cottage industry that flourishes in the Middle East and Asia. I knew only a little about how it worked, all I wanted to know, really, even if it was out of date from my active duty time years before. It included, nevertheless, a synopsis of the essentials; there was an insatiable market for pretty young girls stimulated by an unending flow of international executives or others with the necessary cash desiring to choose their companion for the night, or similar variations on the theme. White slavery, essentially, or close variation thereof. Looking down at her again, dozing now confidently in my arms, I could feel my blood come to a boil!

Maybe I was right, maybe not. No matter. This kidnapping attempt had evidently been foiled by, well, whatever agency "Sally" and my interviewer worked for. Fine. Good work, guys, whoever you are! Now they had passed the ball to me. I mused to myself that I didn't even know I was on the team. Now I was not only on the team but in the game and carrying the ball.

From my drafting and recruitment I figured two or three conclusions could be readily deduced. Firstly, the goal line was to keep Christine out of their clutches and safe, and where possible with as few close scrapes as my skills and forethought could manage. No one, however, could tell me in which direction I was to run with the ball, nor the color of the other team's jerseys, nor even how far away the goal line lay. Those are nice things to know in a ball game, but I would have to sort them out as we went along.

Secondly, how much logistical support I could rely on from the home office was definitely suspect. The fact that they would turn over a case like this to an inactive naval reserve officer seemed to say something. Either they were desperately short of manpower themselves, just possible, or they knew or suspected that the adversary had a MO on most or all of their people and they had to pull in an unknown. That seemed the more likely, even if it was remote. That conclusion, nevertheless, brought its own dark downside. Was my name on a list in someone's file cabinet, network PC, or black book as a potential reserve call up? For how long had they been watching me, keeping tabs on me? Who were "they" and who else... perhaps someone who answered to another master... had or had had access to the list? No answers. OK, my interviewer – I'll call him "Joe" – said he was the only one. Right. In this business I knew prudence helped keep you alive; and prudence said leave no stone unturned. As far as support goes, I had only my own wits and experience to draw on, and the Colt, a pile of scratch and credit cards that suggested more was available... and a cell number to call. Great! Basically I was on my own.

I had called Joe and reported as he instructed once we were on the freeway. Not a thank you, kiss my foot or nothin' – just a direction to call him again on Monday. Nice guy!

Lastly, there was the consideration as to who the guys were on the other team. The "other" they... the real "they." There was the somewhat obvious conclusion that they were middle easterners, but that might prove a dangerous over-simplification. Money and sex turn a lot of heads. The only wise view here was that everyone was a suspect and constant vigilance and caution were absolutely critical. Well, I decided, it may be just a preliminary analysis, but that's how it looks at the moment.

I looked down at her in my arms again, her countenance calm and composed now, confident and trusting in my strength to care for her. I could feel it surge in my being like the ocean's wave. Every ounce of strength, savvy and skill would be turned to preventing her being lost to them, and I resolved that to my dying breath they would not have her, ever.

I thought again about my service training years before, and the demonstrations on the Marine pistol range in Hawaii as I qualified in small arms the last time. The sergeant had offered graphic evidence of the impact of the .45 caliber slug on a 4x6" oak timber, a sheet of 3/8^th steel plate and, by inference, on the human body.

If it came to that and there was no working around it, I decided right then and there that I would create my own graphic evidence.

"Christine," I whispered lightly near her ear, "du wolltest dich doch mit mir frühstücken, oder?" I figured at this point she had to be hungry.

After her cry, a little nap seemed to revive her spirits. She appeared more relaxed as she awoke and sat up next to me. She was embarrassed to have sobbed so and, I knew from experience with my wife years earlier, that her eyes would be all puffy and red from crying. I ignored that and scooted her off to the bathroom to shower and get ready for the day, reminding her that I was anxious to see her in some of her new clothes. That seemed to lighten her spirits a little.

We rose and prepared ourselves for the day. Since she wanted the door open between our rooms I promised her I would not enter without calling to her in advance for her invitation to enter, that so she could feel safe and private and that I would not embarrass her. After just a few minutes she called to me and said I could come in. We had each showered and dressed and she sat at the little dresser brushing her hair, in each such feminine activity just marvelously attractive, and I sat on the edge of her bed watching her as we chatted.

In a girlish mood and happy, she told me how pleased she was to have found such a nice hairbrush and how good it made her feel to be able to brush her hair out. At length she laid it aside and stood up and turned to me, the light blue of her new sweater accentuating her very feminine curves and setting off her glistening auburn hair and the deep brown of her expressive eyes.

Had I not been watching her, pleased at what I saw, her standing in front of me so prettily would have stunned me to mumbling gibberish. "You're just pretty as a picture this morning, Christine." The compliment just flowed as naturally as my next breath, but there was the slightest shadow of question in her face. I paused, and could see immediately that she knew I saw it, and she dropped her eyes shyly.