Bag Lady & the Retired Marine Ch. 06

Dave invites Susan home to bunk with him.

An odd couple and an unlikely pair, a retired and decorated, former Marine walking with a tall, blonde, beautiful, bag lady, both looked as if they were walking a death march instead of embarking on something new, exciting, and wonderful. They acted more like an old, married couple who barely tolerated one another rather than a man interested in a woman who gave him the eye.

Whether it was the tension from their awkwardness and the uncertainty they felt as a not yet stated and defined couple, a real pair of misfits suddenly thrown together, no doubt they felt the anticipation from their obvious sexual attraction. Their mood suddenly changed from lightheartedness to seriousness. Sex was serious business, after all, when one hasn't had an intimate relationship for a long while and the other really never made love to a real woman other than being with prostitutes who, even if they spoke English, they didn't speak his language. Where Susan was outgoing, albeit angry and Dave was confidently in control, both grew quiet.

Dave would have had a much easier time of sensing the changes in a woman and between a man and a woman if he were located in a desert and surrounded by the hot, blazing sun and the burning, blowing sand. Without given an order and before even agreeing to accept this mission of love and romance, he was out of his element in walking in public with Susan while trying to make small talk. Marines, even former Marines, unless they were jabbering with their buddies didn't have the time or see the need to make small talk. Being that nothing was small to them, war was all encompassing and too big of a deal to talk about nonsense. Certainly, Dave would rather face and armed terrorist than a beautiful woman.

Nevertheless, out of their control, the stage was slowly setting for something to happen between them. As if there were incoming missiles, wanting to hit the ground and pull her down beneath him to protect her or to fuck her, he felt the change in the air as if there was an incoming mortar about to land and explode at his feet. The fact of the matter was that both of them were strong individuals. With Dave a bullheaded Taurus and Susan a proud Leo the lioness, after their firework display was over, their stage was set for sparks to fly.

Be it for a head butting hostile exchange that would surely result in a difference of opinion and or an argument, being that she was just as strong willed and stubborn as he was, he was ready for rejection. Besides, even though she was easy on the eyes and attractive enough to make him interested and to keep him interested, unfortunately for both, she wasn't his type. Too tall, too blonde, too fair skinned, too busty, too talkative, and too much woman, especially when he was more than enough of a man to carry both sides of the conversation, she was too much of everything. Spirited, sexy, and smart, she was all that he never looked for in a woman. Spending what seemed like a lifetime overseas, especially in the middle east, he had grown accustomed to lusting over short, petite, small breasted, and shyly submissive woman with hair as dark as their eyes. He preferred a woman that he could control instead of taking the chance of starting a relationship with a woman who wanted to control him.

Rejection or acceptance, sex, and/or love, with nothing really new but for the one they were with, both had traveled down this path many times before with others. A first time for everything, this was the first time that Dave invited a woman to his small, albeit efficient apartment and the first time he asked a woman to live with him or bunk with him, as he so romantically put it. He always found all that he needed and everything that he wanted by picking up a woman of the night and going to her place or to a cheap motel to hump and sweat. Now having second thoughts with every slow step he took, with his mind racing much faster than his feet were walking, normally, his pace was much quicker than this. Never being much of a conversationalist, especially after doing all of his talking in the diner or with a weapon in his deadly hand, while walking and thinking of something to say, he had nothing else to say.

"You know, Dave, if you'd rather I not bunk with you," she said with an uncomfortable laugh, "we could forget this whole thing and go our separate ways. You saved my ass, gave me sixty bucks, and fed me a big meal. I appreciate all that you've done for me. I still have my bags of cans hidden behind the dumpster. I can go back to where I was living and to where I belong for the time being. A life I've grown accustomed to living, it's not as terribly bad as it seems on the surface," she said maintaining a stiff upper lip and a brave face. "You don't have to worry about me. I'll be okay," she said raising her head high and sticking out her enormous chest. "Really. I've come this far alone already. I really don't need any more of your help. Thank you for everything but--"

"Don't be silly. This is good. Yeah, this is a good thing," he said as if trying to convince himself of that. "If I'm reticent at all, a creature of a stringent routine to get me through my day, it's because I'm not very good with change."

"Trust me. I know. We all have our routines. Imagine me being flooded out of my house to roam the street, live in a shelter, and eat at a mission. Quite the change, I swear I'd have to make less of a change and would have had a better life had I gone to prison."

"I hear you. Speaking of prison, don't forget, much in the way of someone serving a 30-year prison sentence, not that the Marine Corps was prison but, longer being in than being out, I was in the Corps for 30 years of my life. That drill, that discipline, and taking orders is the only routine that I know. The Corps was my home and my good buddies were my family. I always had a buddy to watch my back and never a woman.

"I understand. Being retired from the Marines must be a big change for you," she said rolling her eyes how anyone could make a career out of the military.

Taking orders and not making their own decisions about what to do and where to go whenever and wherever they wanted, while always in harm's way, without him realizing it, he was as much prisoner of the United States military as he was a proud Marine.

"Just as I've never talked as much as I'm talking now, I don't know anything else. I've been with plenty of women but I never had a wife or a girlfriend. A lone wolf when it comes to love but a team player when it came to the Marines, other than my barracks buddies, I'm never been in a committed relationship."

"Committed relationship? Hold on. Wait one second," said Susan standing still and staring at him sideways. "Back up. Where was I when we went from you buying me breakfast to me being your woman and you being my man? I don't need any stinking man to take care of me," she said with defiance. "I can take care of myself," she said looking at him while raising her voice with hostility. "You have a lot of nerve to think that I--"

"I'm sorry. Jumping way ahead, I'm not good with words and I didn't mean to imply that we're together. I'm just worried--"

"Worried? Worried about what?"

"How to act with you in my apartment and what to say with you in my life? I feel as if I'm a pimply faced teenager on a first date."

"You know, Dave, if it helps, let's go back to before I wasn't your girlfriend," said Susan with an uncomfortable laugh. "I'm just a woman you saved and a woman that you now feel responsible for," she said. "As if I'm your personal spoils of war, now that you have me or think that you own me, you don't have a clue what to do with me?"

"You're taking this all wrong Susan. I didn't mean to suggest--"

"So what do you do with me Dave? Huh? Tell me because just along for the ride, at your whim and whimsy, I'd like to know," she said making solid eye contact with him. "Do you fuck me or give me a place to stay. Maybe you'd like to do both. Tell me, would you prefer having sex with me before I go to sleep or after I awaken? Are you an evening person or a morning person." She stared at him and when he didn't answer, she punctuated her indignation. "Fuck you Dave! Fuck you," she said walking away.

As soon as he saw her leaving his decision was made. No longer indecisive, he knew now what he needed to do.

"Wait. Hold up. C'mon Susan. I didn't mean to--"

She turned to confront him with a face full of as much confusion as she had of sorrowful hurt.

"Just as you don't know what to make of this situation, I don't know either. Just as this is new ground for you, this is new ground for me too. Now I'm not saying that having sex is on the table or off the table. We're both consenting adults. Whatever happens, happens. We can take things slow and see what happens or we can just go our separate ways now. You tell me."

He looked at her in the way that John Wayne looked at Maureen O'Hara in the Quiet Man. She was so pigheaded, just like him. Yet, unlike him, when he was mad and his face was all red, turned, and twisted with anger, she was so fucking beautiful when she was angry, even more beautiful when she emerged from the ladies room in the brightly lit diner.

"Actually, now that we've put everything out there, especially the sex, I feel better with the pressure that I put on myself now off," he said letting out a sigh of relief. They walked a few blocks without saying anything before Dave pointed for her to take a side street with him that led away from the city to the more suburban part of town. "I like you Susan. I really do. I think you're a Hell of a woman, a special lady, and easy on the eyes but I'd rather face a firing squad than to be alone with a pretty woman who may be expecting more than I can give."

"I know and I like you too Dave. Truthfully, I'm not expecting any more than a place to wash my dirty body, rest my cold, tired head, and have a cup of coffee and some grub in the morning. Then, I'll be on my way as if none of this ever happened. Okay?"

"Okay," he said digging his hands deep in his pockets as if his pant pockets contained all of his answers. Not knowing what else to say to convince her otherwise to stay longer than a night, he agreed with her.

"For the first time in my life, I feel safe. You make me feel that there's nothing you can't handle," she said being submissive to him for the first time.

More of a man of action than of words, he stopped and turned to her. Perhaps because she suddenly showed him her soft side, he was more attracted to her. Then, out of the clear blue, as if he was pulling out his knife to slit her throat, he took her in his arms and kissed her. When he parted her lips with his tongue, she returned his passion with her own. Then, as if she was wearing a vest bomb, he abruptly pushed her away.

"Sorry. Sorry. I'm so sorry," he said. "I don't know what came over me. Please forgive me."

"No need to be sorry Dave unless you didn't mean to kiss me," she said with a nervous laugh.

"I did," he said looking down to avoid making eye contact with her. "I did mean to kiss you but I don't believe in any of that mumbo jumbo about there's a reason for everything and--"

"You mean, fate, kismet, and destiny?"

"Yeah, I guess that's what I mean," he said still not looking at her while digging in his heels while being determined not to like her, want her, and need her.

"What about love at first sight? Do you believe in that?" She looked at him when he didn't answer her. "Other than the Marine Corps, tell me, what else to you believe in besides the United States military? You don't think that some kind of cosmic attraction or magical force whether physical, spiritual, and/or emotional played a part in what happened tonight and with you interceding to save me?" She looked at him and smiled.

"And you do?" He looked at her as if she was a prisoner of war and he was interrogating her. "To be honest, seeing you only from a distance, I thought you were nothing more than an old, bag lady. Then, when I saw you in the diner," he paused not wanting to tell her that his heart skipped a beat, "I never expected you to be this beautiful blonde."

"Yeah, well, even if you don't I believe in all of that mumbo jumbo, I think that fate had everything to do with what happened here tonight. Right place at the right time, someone was tapping you on the shoulder and they weren't wearing a uniform other than wings and a halo."

"So, what are you saying?" He looked at her as if she was a new recruit telling him that there was more to life than being a Marine. "Are you saying that there is more to all of this than me saving you, feeding you, and offering you a place to bunk?"

"Duh? You asked me to bunk with you," she said laughing. "Wow! Right up there with asking me to be your woman, that's serious for you. Next you'll be making me a braid out of a terrorist's scalp and giving me that as a ring before pinning one of your medals on my chest," she said with a laugh.

"Wait. Hold on now. I only asked you to spend the night...or two," he said looking at her. "I didn't ask you to marry me. Where did all that come from about me giving you a ring to put on your finger."

Even in the frightful mess she was, underneath her messy hair, dirty fingernails, and makeup free face, he could tell that she was beautiful. In the way that her blonde hair was wild, frizzy, and pulled back as if restrained when the rest of her spirit wasn't, she looked as if she just woke up from bed after a long night of sex. She smelled of sex. She exuded sex. More than sexy, she was the epitome of what every man wants in a woman. He looked at her again and always more comfortable categorizing the women he knew, the closest woman he could imagine her being like was Kim Basinger, only younger, shapelier, and more beautiful.

To be continued...