Loading...The morning news from CNN bounced off my subconscious while I made coffee. (CNN)’….North Korea rattling sabre again….’ I don’t know WHY I was making coffee, other than it was a habit I’d picked up in the 15 years of my now-failing marriage to John Anderson. (CNN)’….Corrupt New Jersey cop sought in slaying….’ I’d never enjoyed the bitter taste of coffee, only the smell.
Was there a metaphor there for not dipping too deeply into life’s choices, I wondered, enjoy the surface things, don’t dig too deep, you’ll regret it? (CNN)’….Earthquake in China claims at least 300…’
My life with John had started in high school, both of us smitten with the other nearly on first sight. Nothing Special John, Nothing Special Jesse, but special to each other, and that sense of delight in each other hadn’t started to fade until we had been married for 5 years, like an old joke, ‘My husband and I have had 5 wonderful years together. Not bad, out of 15….’. Our marriage, and our love, was inevitably ground under 15 years of sameness, and little in common, other than a past. John had succumbed to temptation in an office encounter, and to my own shame I hadn’t given him enough reason to turn away, though I felt no other emotion.
Now here I was, 34 years old, and it looked as though I wasn’t likely to be a part of an “us” anymore. The saddest thing, I think, was the lack of regret I did, or didn’t rather, feel. We’d separated 6 months previously, and I can’t say that my life had changed much as a result, other than that John was now never around to carry the burden of keeping our palatial home, make that ‘house,’ together, though he was so good about paying for all expenses and keeping me comfortable. As a successful stock broker, he had put himself in a position where he could manage that easily enough, and to his credit he didn’t drag his feet about paying bills or in any other money matters, so I really didn’t bear him any ill will. Worse, I felt nothing inside regarding John.
I took quick stock of myself physically: 34, slightly overweight, a size 14 where I’d almost always been an 8, short, raven-black hair, with wisps of gray showing up, crows-feet developing in the corners of the skin around my eyes, lines, heck, wrinkles, a little more difficult to cover every day, sagging breasts – in short, I was growing older. Mentally: I had no clue. To use a nautical term, I was completely at sea about where I was headed, and what the future might bring. Emotionally: even worse, don’t ask.
I had promised John that I would winterize our family boat, a 34′ Whisper Jet sport cruiser. It was docked at St. Michaels, MD, across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge a few hours from our Bethesda, MD home in the Washington, DC suburbs. I prepared a sack lunch of Boars Head country ham sandwiches with mustard, home made cookies (bought at Zabar’s in Manhattan), and some apples and bananas, along with a jug of iced tea I’d brewed my very own self. I climbed into the Dark Blue Pearl Lincoln Navigator, making sure I had my cell phone, and headed out to the Capital Beltway, then east on Rte 50 and the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The brilliant fall colors of red, orange, and yellow in the sugar maples lining the streets of our comfortable neighborhood gave a joyous and gay punctuation to what was otherwise a fairly blah day, in both mind and body, so far as I was concerned.
The drive was unremarkable, marked with less traffic than usual, particularly on the Beltway, which had become a slow-motion parking lot at most times of the day in recent years. I had made the drive to St. Michaels countless times, though usually with John, and while I drove, I thought about the missed opportunities for both John and I in repairing our relationship. I had no idea, even at this late date, what or how to fix things, or what I really wanted. One thing I knew in my belated trip to wisdom, I’d better decide what I DID want, or I’d end up making the same mistakes I’d made throughout my life. I had to learn to make choices, whether for good or bad, and be responsible for the consequences. Though I might regret those decisions, at least I wouldn’t regret life making them for me.
After crossing over the immense southern span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, a drive which had always slightly unnerved me due to the great height of the structure, I drove south down Rte 50, then west on St. Michaels Road, and finally entered St. Michaels itself, a picturesque, but still fortunately sleepy bayside town, that still depended heavily on the Chesapeake area’s tradition of fishing and ‘ostering,’ as the oyster harvesting business was pronounced thereabouts. But it was also reaping the bounty of increasing amounts of Yuppy and Generation X tourist dollars, as St. Michaels’ attractive and historic area was again being discovered by another generation. I drove down Talbot Street, turned left at Chew Ave, then to Meadow and to the marina parking lot.
I pulled up to the marina in St. Michaels, the picturesque town and its Fall Harvest celebration preparations only peripherally on my mind, as I began mentally ticking off the list of actions I’d have to take to get the 34′ boat ready for winter. I took out the large grocery bag of food, and tea, locked up the Navigator, and walked down to the dock. The St. Michaels marina is composed of a long central pier extending far out into the Miles River, with cross docks where the water craft are actually docked.
The closer in docks are for smaller craft, like boats, as the water is shallower there, and the outer docks, farther from the shore and in deeper water, are where the larger craft, ‘ships,’ are docked, with their deeper draws. As the “Melancholy Baby,” a Whisper Jet sport cruiser, was capable of ocean travel and was a little longer and with a deeper draft than many of the other boats berthed at the Chesapeake Bay marina, it was berthed among the fancier craft, including some yachts that exceeded 80, and even 100 feet. I wasn’t going to be doing a great deal to get it ready for the cold weather, just adding additional anti-freeze, fuel stabilizer, and doing some lube work on the fittings, setting a trickle charger on the battery, as well as picking up miscellaneous junk left behind during the summer, battening down the hatches and emptying the refrigerator, etc.
Passing a short, roughly dressed man tying his shoes, I walked to the security gate, about 30 feet farther out on the pier past the tackle and supplies store, which was closed for lunch, and pulled out my magnetic pass card to open the welded steel gate. When the buzzer sounded, I jerked the heavy gate open, and began walking through. Just then, I was bumped into by the man as he, too rushed through, muttering a brief apology. I turned and glared at him, but he kept his head down, looking at the silvery gray, weather worn oak planking of the pier, a cheap fisherman’s cap pulled down over his face.
I began to feel alarm, and I started looking around to see if there was anyone else around. My hand came out of my jacket pocket with my cell phone flipping open, when the man’s arm struck upwards under mine, and the phone went flying into the shallow water. My fears confirmed, the ‘man’ lifted his face to mine (he seemed shorter than I am, and I’m 5′ 8″), though still in shadow, and steel blue eyes locked onto mine, a husky voice whispering at the same time, “I’ve got a gun pointed at your middle. Don’t scream, don’t make any abrupt movements, and you’ll get out of this without being hurt in any way. Do you understand?”
I stood frozen in fear, unable to move, or even breath. Just seconds before I had been bemoaning the loss of my marriage, and here I was facing the loss of my life. I managed a shaky nod, my hands and the bag they held shaking like a rose bush in a hurricane. “Good,” the man said. “Now, where’s your boat?”
Barely able to put my thoughts into any kind of order, I said, “Cruiser. Only landlubbers call these ships ‘boats.'”
“Shit!” the voice hissed. “I don’t give a FUCK what you call the fuckin’ thing, where’s your goddamn boat!” I pointed towards the end cross tree, and in a tremulous voice, said, “There.”
“Take me there,” the man said. I managed, barely, to pull my feet forward to walk out to the Melancholy Baby, aware of a heat running down both legs from my crotch. God, I’d pissed myself! We walked, or more aptly, shambled out to the craft, my body barely able to obey the command, the man hunched over and striving to keep his head down as he walked behind.
When we got to my cruiser, he said, “This is it?” I nodded yes, he muttered, “This’ll do, I guess,” and gestured for me to climb aboard. He followed close behind, and sat down on one of the deck chairs. “Get us out of here,” he said. “And I meant it when I said I wasn’t going to hurt you.”
I started up the engine, the fuel gauge said there was about 150 gallons in the tank, half her capacity, though I had no idea how far this guy was going. The engine purred like a kitten, it had just had an overhaul the previous month. I moved to cast off the bow and stern lines from the dock cleats, and pushed off. We drifted out from the wooden structure about 15 feet, already taken by the tide, and I slowly eased away from the marina, in the ‘no-wake’ zone. Outside of that, I began to cruise up the Miles River.
“Go south,” the man said.
“You have to go north, to go south from here,” I called back to the man, slumped in the chair. It looked as though he had dropped a red kerchief from his pocket on the white painted deck. “It’s the way the river runs.” Plucking up more courage than I had shown heretofore, I asked, “Where is it you want to get to?”
“Florida,” he answered laconically.
“Holy shit,” I thought, “this isn’t a shipjacking, it’s a fucking kidnapping.” I figured it was best not to get too involved with this guy by asking too many questions, so I figured on a course for the mouth of the Bay, and then playing it by ear from there. John and I had shared skippering duties on the craft, so I was pretty familiar with its operation. I set a course by dead reckoning out the Miles River, into the upper Chesapeake Bay, and around to the west where I could hit the main channel. Passing well to the spit of sand north of Claiborne, MD, I entered the main channel of the Chesapeake and headed south now, staying about 1/4 mile off the eastern shore, keeping in deep enough water without getting into the main shipping channel, where the Baltimore-bound freighters run. There was little comment from the man the whole of this time.
Finally, hours later, down near Gloucester Point, north of Hampton, VA I said, “We’re nearly out of fuel. What do you want to do?”
The man roused himself, then said, “Well, pull over and get some gas.” Landlubbers! I brought us into a dockside fuel station in Gloucester Point, and got ready to refuel.
“We need to pay for the gas,” I said.
The man said, “Use your credit card.” I figured it was no use pretending I didn’t have one, with that gun he might make me pay too high a price. I sighed, and pulled out one of my Visa cards, and ran it through the slot, then pulled the long hose over and set it into the fuel reservoir opening. I knew it wasn’t going to be cheap. With a 300 gallon tank, and gas at about $1,80, it ran to nearly $500. I guessed that, after it was all over, if I were still alive, I might be able to get the money back from insurance or something.
Completing the transaction, I fired her up, and moved us back into the channel, and past Hampton and its gigantic US Naval vessels, out into the Atlantic itself, and staying within 10 miles or so of the coast. I turned to ask the man what he wanted next, and if I could at least eat, since it was now late in the day, and found him slumped to the deck, in a pool of blood, a small pool but no less shocking.
I stepped down onto the deck and over to him, moving cautiously, and put my fingers on his thumb, to check his pulse. An extraordinarily small thumb for a man, the fingers smooth, and I was stunned to see flecks of fingernail polish on the nail. A woman? He/she showed no signs of rousing, so I reached gingerly inside the jacket for the gun, which turned out to be a 9 mm police issue. The only reason I recognized it as such, was because John had one like it. Checking further, I found an ID flip wallet inside the jacket pocket, with a policeman’s badge on one side, and an ID card issued by the State of New Jersey, with a picture of an attractive young woman in the uniform of the New Jersey State Police, smiling for all she was worth. The name on the ID card was ‘Trooper Jenny Clark.’
I compared the picture to my kidnapper’s face, pushing back the battered fisherman’s cap, to see ringlets of golden hair matching those in the picture. The face, too, was the same, but lined and dirty, pallid in her cheeks where in the picture she’d had a ruddy glow. Only God knew what was happening, but it was clear to me that I had an injured police officer on my hands, and that I’d have to act quickly. After I quickly set the sea anchor to minimize drifting, I dragged/carried her below to the small double sized bunk that served as the sleeping surface in the tiny cabin, and laid her out on the bunk. As I lay her down, a packet of 35 mm photographs fell out of her shirt pocket.
I looked through the photographs quickly. It looked like the series of pictures had either been taken very closeup, or through a sophisticated telephoto lens. It seemed likely that the telephoto lens was the right choice, as the series of pictures showed two groups of 3 or 4 men each, meeting inside an apparently abandoned industrial building, the place looked like a real mess by the dirt, dust and oil on every surface. The pictures looked as though they were sequential, and they progressed to a point where one of the groups of men pulled out guns and started shooting the others, apparently killing or seriously wounding them. I looked at the back of the photos, but there was nothing there, other than one photo that said, ‘Capt. Jameson?’ or something like that, hurriedly scribbled in pencil
I turned back to the girl. She looked as though she was in her early twenties, but also as though she’d been through holy hell. I looked first at where she was obviously injured. The blood seemed to be coming from her upper right thigh. I gingerly unbuckled her men’s style jeans and belt, then eased them down her slim legs until a long, but shallow cut from a knife or other sharp object was revealed on the outside of her upper thigh. I didn’t know much about wounds, but I didn’t think there was an artery in that area that would result in fatal blood loss. The blood wasn’t spurting, so I figured it wasn’t an arterial wound, which probably would have finished her off long ago. From the way she smelled, it had been a while since she had a bath. I pulled off the jeans, leaving her in, oddly enough, a pair of pretty white lace bikini panties.
We didn’t have a very good first aid kit on the cruiser, but at least it had a bottle of Betadine, which would serve as a disinfectant. I thought a little bit about what might work as a bandage, and I remembered that I had left a package of maxi-pads in a storage cabinet by the head, when I was having my period on one of our past trips. Along with duct tape, which every boat has (or should have), I had the makings of a workable bandage, and just about the right size, too. I cleaned the cut as best I could, using cold water from the tap at the small multi-purpose sink, and some paper towels from a few rolls accumulated on board, part of the ‘junk’ I had intended to bring back after closing up the cruiser. I then applied the napkin, soaked with Betadine on the cut, and taped over it, onto her thigh, with duct tape. Her thigh was firm and warm under my fingers as I moved her leg to minister to her. I looked between her legs then, and saw a fairly large spot of blood, at about the spot where every woman has seen one, at least once in her life, at her vagina.
Believe me, there was nothing sexual about this police officer/girl, not at that point. Dressed like a bum, filthy and smelly to heaven, and apparently springing a leak, she was basically just a mess. I sighed, and my mothering instinct went into high gear. I quickly pulled her panties down in front, saw that it WAS just her period (not shot, or knifed, or anything), then I pulled her panties back up, and began undressing her top. The men’s flannel shirt she was wearing was filthy, as though she’d crawled through a sewer, and I could at least try to prevent infection, and improve her smell. I unbuttoned her shirt, pulled it off (not easy with a dead weight), then reached behind her and unsnapped her bra (a very lovely lace pattern again, and a match for the panties, go figure), and gently took it off her, revealing her small breasts and her pretty little pink nipples and areolas, like a small girl’s (the nipples, not her breasts). She stunk really bad, so I set to work.
I covered her with a blanket, to keep her warm, then drew some fresh water from the tap (a tank on the boat holds a couple of hundred gallons), and set it on the camp stove in a large pot to take the chill off it. After the water was heated, I took a roll of paper towels and some liquid body soap, and started giving her a sponge bath, starting at the top of her head, doing what I could with her hair, then soaping and wiping down her face, neck, upper chest, as much of her as I could reasonably reach, then dried her and covered her upper body with the blanket again.
I finished up her stomach and as much of her lower back as I could without flinging her all around, then pulled her panties down off her hips, and down her legs to the floor. To my surprise, there was a long wadded mass of cheap toilet paper, serving as a makeshift sanitary napkin, half of it stuck in the crotch of her panties, and half still adhering to her vagina, where it had been pressed in.
What kind of desperate circumstances can a woman be in, where she can’t get her hands on some kind of pad or tampon, or at least attend to herself to some extent? She smelled pretty bad there, as can happen. I gently stripped off the blood soaked residue of the toilet paper from below her golden bush, which was full and abundant, though neatly trimmed, and apparently shaved around her labia. I gently wiped around her vulva, removing the dirt, and residue from her flow, and for some reason began crying. I sat there helplessly for maybe 5 minutes, sobbing, tears running down my cheeks, and not knowing why. I guess in retrospect it was sadness at seeing this young girl’s desperation (under the dirt, she looked like she was 17, though obviously older), so severe that she couldn’t take time to reach a minimum level of human semblance. From her ID photo, though, it was obvious that she’d been happy and composed once upon a time.
I forced myself to just stop crying, and finished cleaning her, so that by the time I finished, all the way down to her feet, she didn’t smell quite so bad and looked a lot more human, and feminine. I didn’t have any panties for her to replace her dirty ones, but I did have an old, but clean, bikini bottom that would fit her and keep the breeze off her ass, which, honestly, looked nice. I could remember when my bottom was that trim, though I was heavier now. I thought she must have all the boys admiring her as she went by. I put one of the spare pads inside the bikini bottoms, between her legs, where it would do some good.
She’d need medical attention soon, and I thought about where I could take her in. I decided not to go back, but to go forward, through one of the inlets of the North Carolina Outer Banks. There was something extremely odd about this affair, and I wasn’t quite ready to take her to the police until I’d had a chance to learn a little more from her, if she awakened any time soon.
I sat watch over her for an hour or two in a deck chair, then dozed off, waking when I sensed movement. She was sitting up in the bunk, holding her head, and in a soft voice said, dazedly, “Where am I?”
I said, “You’re on my ship, where you kidnaped me.” She looked at me blankly.
“Oh, God, I’m SO sorry,” she said. “I was desperate. They had trailed me down to St. Michaels, and one of those marina boats was my last chance.”
“Who is ‘they?'” I asked.
“I don’t know, exactly,” she said. “I was on a New Jersey State Police Governmental Corruption Task Force, and we were tracking down a lead about a government official who was meeting with some Organized Crime members in an old mill in Trenton, down by the Delaware River. I was there, hidden behind some broken and junked old equipment with my partner, and best friend, Trooper Roberta Jenson, and we were taking pics when the two groups showed up, as we’d been tipped. To my surprise, one of the people was a Captain in the State Police, my boss’s boss, as a matter of fact, and from the way these guys were talking, they knew exactly who he was, and he was one of them.
“Anyway, his group just pulled out their guns and began shooting these Mob guys, which didn’t break me up any, but it was really cold, no, ‘You’re under arrest!’ no nothing, just gunfire. Roberta and I knew we had to do something, so we stepped out with our weapons drawn, and shouted, ‘State Police! Drop your weapons!'”
“Another man we hadn’t seen fired on us, and hit Roberta dead square in the forehead. She dropped like a sack of wet shit.” Here, Jenny stopped talking, and tears began running, no, pouring, down her cheeks. She cried for the longest time, at least it felt that way to me, but it was just a few minutes, and she snuffled and wiped her face on a clean piece of the paper towel.
“I’m sorry,” she said, brusquely. “So, Roberta was dead, and I wasn’t and I was running. I was on foot in one of the worst parts of Trenton, cut off from my police cruiser, which we’d parked blocks away, trying to get to a phone. Did you know, there AREN’T any fucking pay phones in Trenton? You’ve either got a cell phone, or you’re fucked.”
“No cabs, no other cops, no fuckin’ anything but a GODDAMNED WAR ZONE!” she screamed this last. “And in the couple of hours of my tryin’ to get back to …. someone…. anyone ….there was an APB put out ….. on ME, claiming that I had shot Roberta, and was armed and dangerous!”
“That fuckin’ Capt. Jameson, my boss’s boss, had convinced somebody, somehow, that I was a bad cop, and had gunned down my partner, and every cop in the northeast was on my ass. I had to make a decision, and that was to run. My only chance to prove my innocence is down in Florida, in Fort Lauderdale. I knew that if I were on the road, there’d be a lot of people who’d be looking for my face, but on the water …..,” she paused, then resumed.
“I’m sorry for kidnaping you, and for my language, I’m just really pissed that Roberta’s dead, and that piece of dog crap who did it, is trying to pin it on me. I figured my uncle in Fort Lauderdale could help me, he’s a retired colonel in the State Police. No plan, just going to ask for his help.”
I didn’t know what to say, but this was an unexpected twist, as far as I was concerned. Then I remembered that blurb I overheard on CNN…..Corrupt New Jersey cop sought in slaying…. either the word WAS out unfairly, and she didn’t have a chance, or she was a corrupt cop, like the story said….she didn’t seem like a killer, but then I don’t think I’ve ever known a killer.
“What made you join the police?” I asked, stalling for time. I had to make a decision, to at least play along, until I knew more. One thing for sure, I wasn’t giving her the gun back until I knew more about what was going on. “It’s a family thing,” she said. “Going back to my great-grandfather, we’ve been a family of policemen. Both my brothers are cops, in New Brunswick, my dad was a cop in Newark. He was gunned down trying to arrest a bank robber when I was a kid. I always wanted to be like him, and after I graduated from Rutgers, I joined the State Police. I’ve been on the force two years now. I’m not too sure how long that’s gonna last, though,” she said sadly. “That fuck.” I guessed she was talking about the crooked cop she said they’d run across.
“Umm, would you like a sandwich?” I said.
“Yeah, sure, thanks,” she said. “And uh, thanks for cleaning me up …. it WAS you who did it, right? I know I smelled, I had to go through some rough places to get out of Trenton, then stole a car and drove down here, really anywhere I thought I’d find a boat, it’s kind of mixed up, I think I’ve got a little fever or sump’n.” She sat back down, hard, bringing her hand to her head, rubbing her temple. “Let me just rest….a little.” She fell over, unconscious.
I laid her out on the bunk, and put my hand, palm down on her forehead – it felt as though her forehead was in flames. She was very feverish, something was going to have to be done for her fast. I didn’t know what to do, other than let the heat out as best I could. I took the blanket, which was only partially covering her anyway, off her, and she lay on the bed, naked except for the bikini bottoms, sweat rolling off her body. I wet some paper towels, and wiped down her face, and forehead, trying to help her cool down.
I sat next to her for hours, until late, swabbing her face and changing towels, I guess about two in the morning, until her body cooled down. Then I had to figure out some way to keep her warm. There wasn’t much by way of warm cover on the boat, I’d pretty much used up our resources between the left over sanitary napkins and the duct tape, so I used the only cover I had for her, the thin blanket, and my body. I’d never actually laid with another girl before, and it certainly wasn’t sexual … but, well, it WAS sexual, kind of.
Oh, none of the things you read about in …those kinds of stories, but just a comforting, oddly, safe, kind of feeling. I was there to keep Jenny safe and warm while she was unconscious, but oddly, I felt a warmth and safety with this girl, and I quickly dropped off to sleep. The next morning I awoke, before Jenny did. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully, and her forehead seemed to be about the right temperature, and her skin had normal color, her breathing was deep and unhurried. I figured she’d weathered at least one of her storms.
I headed up to the cockpit to get my bearings. It was a foggy morning, and I wasn’t exactly sure where we were, so I turned on the GPS, and we were no more than about twenty miles from where I’d set the sea anchor the previous night. I estimated I could get us to an inlet through the Outer Banks within a couple of hours, and find a doctor for Jenny.
I navigated us by using the GPS, and dead reckoning, and brought us under the Hwy 12 causeway into Pamlico Sound, a little south of Manteo, NC, an island inside of the Outer Banks, but well off the mainland. Remote enough, built up enough, to get medical care without much attention. I navigated us to the small marina on the east side of Manteo, and berthed the “Melancholy Baby.” Unless someone had seen Jenny abduct me, there was no reason why we would attract attention, and I doubted that law enforcement authorities would be looking hard for her here.
There’s no hospital, per se, on the Outer Banks, the nearest one being in Elizabeth City, but as I recalled from a previous trip to Manteo that John and I had made, there were a couple of urgent care clinics, mainly attending to sunburn and other related maladies. But first, I went below and told Jenny that I was going to head out and get us some clothes.
“You’d do that for me?” she said, at first, such a sweet expression on her face, like a little girl who’s been told that she’s going to get a treat. Then, I guess the cop in her took over, her expression got a little hard, and she growled, “How do I know I can trust you?”
“Well, you don’t, do you?” I threw back in her face. “You’re just going to have to have some faith.” I was a little annoyed, after all, the chick HAD kidnaped me, and I just wanted to give her a fair shot at justice, IF she was telling the truth.
“Sorry,” she said. “I have trust issues.”
“From your story, I can see where you would. No offense taken.” She said she was a size 8, and I knew was a 14. Since I was only getting slacks and blouses, along with a couple of changes of underwear, I wasn’t going to get fancy. Three blocks from the marina on Budleigh Street, was a little women’s shop that was just perfect. I got us each simple blouses, for Jenny a red check and a plain blue one for me, both of them work shirt styles, and two pairs of khaki slacks, a couple of pairs of panties, and I estimated her bra size and got myself one, too. We’d look a tad on the butch side, but not overly unusual considering we were in a fishing area.
I charged the purchase, and picked us up some food from a McDonald’s on the way. When I got back on the boat, and went below, Jenny sat on the bunk, the thin blanket over her shoulders, and the bikini bottoms her only other cover. She looked very relieved to see that it was me.
“I had a dream last night,” she said.
“Yeah?” I said.
“I dreamt you were making love to me,” she said, looking straight into my eyes. I don’t know if it was her comment, or the ‘cop stare,’ but I felt kind of nervous, even though I hadn’t done anything.
“Well, I didn’t,” I said, defensively.
“I didn’t accuse you,” she said. “I just said I had a dream.” A silence fell between us, and we went back to chowing down on our Chicken Selects. God, that chipotle sauce sucks, but it tasted pretty good to us then, just the same.
“Roberta was more than a friend and patrol partner,” Jenny said, breaking the silence at last. She didn’t say anything more, and I looked over at her. Tears were streaming down her face. No sobbing, or hiccuping, no other visible signs of despair, just silence and tears.
“Was she your lover, Jenny?” I asked, gently. She just nodded, and finally broke down. I took her in my arms, and held her while her body shook with her emotions, released at long last. God, she must have cried enough to fill Roanoke Sound. I just made little hushing noises, and let her cry. She really, really needed it, and I think that, before the end, that cry was the best, and perhaps only, good thing that happened to her.
“Geez, I REALLY need a real shower,” she said. “You cleaned me up, but I still stink,” she said.
“Well, you don’t smell as bad as you think,” I said, “but, yeah, you could use a shower.” She laughed at that, the first and possibly only one of hers I ever heard. She had a musical laugh, and I found it enchanting. “I’m pretty sure there’s a public shower here at the marina, and they’ve got towels, soap, hot water and even a vending machine with small body splash bottles. Nothing fancy, but …..”
“I’m not fancy, anything’ll do,” she said. I watched as she lowered the blanket from her lovely shoulders, the rough fabric dropping to reveal her small, but perfect, breasts, and I so wanted to touch her there, and comfort her more, but the moment had passed. We put on the new clothes, but tried not to actually touch them, as we didn’t want to carry over our present smells into the clothes. I kind of think that, if you pretend to not touch clothes while you wear them, you don’t make ’em dirty. I don’t know if that ‘mind over matter’ approach really works, but, hey, it can’t hurt, right?
We stepped off the cruiser, and walked up the dock to shore.
“Where’s this?” Jenny asked.
“Manteo, in North Carolina. It’s an island next to the Outer Banks.”
“What are the Outer Banks?” Jenny asked.
“You never heard of the Outer Banks? Did you ever hear of Kitty Hawk?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s where the Wright Brothers first flew their plane,” she said, looking offended. “That’s on the Outer Banks? Is that like on the coast of North Carolina?”
“Jenny, have you ever BEEN outside of New Jersey?” I asked.
“Well, yeah, down to Maryland as a kid, to St. Michaels a couple of times, that’s how I knew to get there. I went to high school in Livingston, and college at Rutgers.”
“Law enforcement major, right?” I said.
“Yup,” Jenny said.
“Well, the Outer Banks is like Sandy Hook, but way longer and way out into the Atlantic Ocean. We’re far away from the world here,” I said.
“Far away from the world, huh?” Jenny mused. “I need far away from the world. I’d just like to crawl into, um, Roberta’s arms …..” she began tearing up a little, but got it under control. The poor kid, I thought, she could use a good cry, all night long. We got to the showers, which are used a lot by boaters. Since it was later in the season, we had the place to ourselves, which was just as well. They had private shower stalls, so we paid for our stuff, and headed into the shower room.
I took the third stall from the left, and Jenny took the one to the right of it. We both sighed loudly when the hot water hit our bodies, and as I scrubbed away my dirt and tension from the previous day and night, I found myself thinking about Jenny and her lover, Roberta, and from there wondered about what lesbians really do together. Of course, I’d seen dirty movies, but did they really go around fucking each other with enormous double-headed dildoes? That didn’t seem very attractive to me, if you wanted a dick inside you, why not just get married and suffer like the rest of us, LOL.
Now, lesbianism would be pretty great, I thought, if the other girl would act like a girl, and be sweet and soft, and nice, and not yell, and smell nice, and just be, well, a girl. Maybe I’d ask Jenny about that if I got the chance. Little did I know, you should probably ask questions while you’ve GOT the chance.
As I was musing, I heard a yell from Jenny’s stall. I tore out of my stall, sweeping the curtain aside, heedless of what anyone might think of a nude middle aged woman tearing out of a shower stall, and entered hers. Jenny was holding her leg, where the makeshift bandage was coming off. I was taken by the sight of her naked body, all dirt washed away, her golden hair delightfully wet and clean, rivulets of water running down her body like runoff from a magnificent glacier, though there was nothing cold about her look, quite the opposite.
She had a scared look on her face, and she said, “it’s bleeding again, Jesse. I’d better get to that urgent care right away.” I got her towel, and dried her off. God, I never realized the pleasure to be found in touching another woman’s body. I tried to be businesslike, and I think I succeeded, but touching Jenny’s breasts, small but perfect, her slim body, hips and waist, her perfectly round ass, and kneeling down in front of her, my face inches away from her pussy, now clean and lovely, small vertical pink slit, thin labia on the sides, a beautiful trim bush, as golden as the hair on her head, and I imagined I could see her little reddish clitoris peeking out at the top of that unforgettable pussy. And I never would forget that vision of loveliness, not until the day that I died.
I finished drying her, and we went into the locker room, splashed ourselves with the cheap body splash, then got dressed. “How do I look,” Jenny said, shakily. I thought about making a comment about us looking like a couple of lesbians, but fortunately held my tongue! I can be so thoughtless sometimes, probably a part of the reason John and I were no longer together.
“I think we look pretty good,” I said. “A couple of sisters.”
“Or girlfriends,” Jenny said. “Umm, regular girlfriends, not like, um….”
“I know what you meant, honey,” I said softly. “It’s okay. And let’s get you to see a doctor, okay?”
We went two blocks over to where I remembered the Manteo Urgent Care Clinic was located, from a fishing hook misadventure years before with John, and we entered. A typical medical institution waiting room, although it had all the cliches like old magazines, it was a great deal more pleasant, and much quieter than any emergency room. I gave my insurance information, but claiming that Jenny was me, and I was her sister, ‘Jenny.’
Jenny got seen right away, by a female doctor, who had no objection to my being in the examining room with her and ‘Jesse.” The doctor was very kind and considerate, but when we spun our planned story about a ‘fishing accident,’ the look of skepticism in her eyes was pretty plain. She stitched up Jenny’s wound, and gave her a prescription for an antibiotic, and a few samples to get her started. Just before she left the room, she said, “Look, I see a lot of women pairs in here for injuries like this. Sometimes it’s a wife and her best friend, sometimes sisters, sometimes life partners, but there’s almost always some jealous man who caused the injury. If that happens to be the case, I encourage you to file charges. That’s going to leave a scar.”
Well, if she was going to guess our real situation, that was as useful a wrong guess as any, so Jenny and I simultaneously crafted looks of ‘oh, you guessed it,’ and I said, “Thank you doctor, that’s good advice,” and Jenny tried to look sheepish. I walked, and Jenny limped, out of there, so I let her lean on me as we made our way to a local supermarket. Her touch was like heaven to me, soft, and warm, and needing me. We got her prescription filled at a Food Lion, picked up some ‘easy food,’ and headed back to the boat. Jenny plopped down onto the bunk, weariness clear on her otherwise lovely face. “I never really got a chance to thank you,” Jenny said, and stood up and kissed me on the cheek. It felt like heaven on my skin, and I never wanted it to end. But eventually, she pulled away from our slight contact, and our eyes met, then after an awkward pause, she sat back down again, a possibly different future missed.
While we were at the dock, I decided to gas up the boat, though it wasn’t near empty, then headed the boat back outside of the Outer Banks. I knew that Jenny wanted to get to Ft. Lauderdale, and I knew how to get there, so I pointed the Melancholy Baby south-southwest, at a slow cruising speed. I went below, and found Jenny asleep on the bunk. I went to put the blanket on her, cursing the fact that I’d forgotten to get any other warm clothing, and just sat next to her for a few minutes, looking down at her.
God, she was beautiful. Her golden blonde hair was naturally curly. When she stood, it flowed over her shoulders in lovely waves. As she slept, her head resting on the thin pillow, it fanned out around her head like a halo. Cleaned up, and free of her waking stress, she looked angelic. Her small mouth and full lips moved in little ‘mewing’ movements, just like a little girl, and I found myself wondering what she was dreaming about. It must have quickly turned into something bad, because she began jerking, and uttering broken sounds, “No! No! Stop!” among many indistinct words.
I lay down next to her, then, to hold her and give her reassurance. I found that the touch of her body, spooned with mine, gave ME reassurance, and peace. I fell asleep, though I hadn’t intended to, and found myself dreaming that I was kissing a lovely young girl, her face indistinct, but I sensed that she was good, and kind, this dream girl. Her arms were around me, in my dream, her soft lips on mine, and I felt her hand softly stroking my crotch, my clothes mysteriously and suddenly disappeared, as happens in dreams.
I lay back, in that dream, my legs slightly spread, my dream girl gently stroking my pussy with her fingertip, my pussy wetting under her touch, her warm breath on my cheek as her breathing increased rapidly, turning hot, her finger penetrating me softly, deeper and deeper. I woke, to find Jenny above me, looking down on me and smiling, her face nearing mine, her lips nearing mine, her warm body protecting me, her sweet breath on me, my head lifting up, my mouth opening to accept her, our lips touching, pressing, tongues dancing, my hips pressing up to her, her hand, not a dream girl’s hand, between my legs, stroking me. I cursed softly as I realized I still had pants, and panties on, keeping my dream/real girl from touching me where I needed to be touched, from stroking me where I needed her touch, from feeling her on me.
I hurriedly unsnapped the snap at the waist of my pants, and furiously pushed them down my hips, my panties thankfully going with them, my wet pussy exposed to Jenny for the very first time. “Please,” I whispered. My angel smiled, and kissed me again and again, her soft fingers now on me, inside me, for real, I was cumming instantly at her touch. I moaned with an ecstasy I had never imagined, much less ever felt. My body exploded with pleasure, jolts of electricity shooting through me, all centered on my tiny nubbin of a clitoris. She had me imprisoned under one small fingertip.
I was delirious with pleasure for a few minutes or a lifetime, and when I came down from that infinite high, I wanted nothing more than to pull off Jenny’s pants and panties, and pleasure her with my finger. I fumbled at Jenny’s snap on her pants, and she gave a throaty chuckle, and helped me by wiggling out of her loosened pants. “Oh!” she said at one point.
“What? Oh, I’m sorry!” I exclaimed. “Your thigh!”
“No, it’s okay,” she said. “I just need to stay off that part ….. but don’t stop,” she said, taking my hand in hers, and bringing my naive touch to the heat and moisture at her pussy. “I must warn you, I’m still…..” and I remembered she was having her period, now at least with decent tampons, her preferred method, instead of toilet paper.
“Does it hurt if I touch you now?” I asked, though I myself had never had a soreness problem, and I actually preferred to masturbate during my period, as it relieved a little discomfort.
“I’d like you to touch me …. please,” Jenny said, and my finger lightly traced the outline of the fertile opening between her slim legs. She sighed. “Yesssss,” she hissed, as I developed a rhythm that I thought that I would have liked, and then her finger recreated those same motions on my pussy and clit, both of us fingering the other, passion building, pleasure rising, lips and clits swelling with our lust. We came, multiple times each, and too soon we each had to push the other’s hand away, the pleasure too much. Then we cuddled, and kissed, and slept some more.
I woke up, remembering that I had left the boat cruising, and thought that I’d better hurry and attend to my sailing, lest we crash and sink. I whispered, “Thank you. Thank you SO much,” and kissed her warm, smooth cheek. I put on my panties, and pants, then hurried to see where we were. There was nothing around us, and I checked the GPS. Fortunately we were just where we should be, so I slumped back in the high captains chair, when, suddenly the chair swung around, and Jenny was standing there, her shirt on but unbuttoned, her breasts and sweet nipples very visible to me, as she had no bra was on. She had only her panties on below. God, she looked SO sexy in the late afternoon sun, the light reflecting off her beautiful golden hair, her eyes a deeper blue than any ocean.
“Are we okay?” she growled throatily.
“Yeah,” I said, “No problem,” and she lowered herself in front of me, kneeling, her head at my crotch level, pulling, tugging until my pants gave up the fight and slipped down my thighs, my still wet pussy now glistening for her in the late afternoon light, her face close, closer to me, her hands pushing my thighs up, my legs up, my pussy so available to her now. Like a hawk on a rabbit, she devoured my wet slit, her tongue licking and circling my labia, my slit, my clit, my curly brown hair, her fingers following voraciously, ignoring my relative virginity and penetrating me two at a time, elevating me, impassioning me, lust filling me, my cunt demanding to be fucked! And for the first time in my life, I communicated with a lover what I wanted.
“God, fuck me! Fuck my cunt with your hard fingers!! Fuck me, now!! I want you to fuckin’ make me cum!!” Jenny took her fingers out of my eager pussy, disappointing me momentarily, but then her full lips fastened on my pearl of a clit, and squeezed gently, driving me mad with sensation. I came, hundreds of times, I’m sure, at that moment when her lips imprisoned my willing prisoner of a clitoris, simultaneous with two of her perfect, white, front teeth nipping at the top of my clit, and her two wetted fingers slipping inside my unsuspecting ass hole. I have never, ever felt anything like that, before or since, and words fail me now in adequately describing the rush of sensations overwhelming me.
I had no choice then, at that moment, but to love Jenny forever for that, and for everything I imagined we’d be allowed by Fate or God to do together, however long that might be.
We decided to set anchor for the night, and spend all of the next day sailing to Ft. Lauderdale. Jenny took my hand, and led me down below, to the double wide bunk. Jenny finished undressing me, then lay me down on the thin mattress, my heart in her hands. Jenny did a teasing striptease for me, slowly pulling off the unbuttoned shirt from her shoulders, her beautiful, petite breasts fully exposed, and her tiny, sweet nipples erect with lust, and I hoped, love. She put her fingers, index finger and thumb only, on the elastic waistband of her panties, and slowly slipped them down her hips, her gorgeous pussy red and swollen, her golden curls a lovely contrast.
She stood at the end of the bunk then, naked and perfect, then crawled between my legs. I moved them apart to allow her entry. She pressed her pussy into mine, and I lifted my legs up so that our vaginas could kiss. Her pussy was incredibly hot against mine, and I became concerned that she might be feverish, then I remembered her period. Jenny gently rocked herself against me, each part of my mons matching up with hers, our clits rhythmically rubbing together, causing sparks to tingle through us both. Jenny fucked me like that, over and over again, and we kissed throughout, sweet kisses of promise, promises to forever love and cherish, and not a word spoken. Grunting, moaning, groaning, cooing, breathing. Explosions of hips, thighs shaking in the ultimate pleasure. Entire conversations not in words, but in feelings, emotions, in the ‘being’ of one another. I could have died then. I would have gladly died then, if I knew we would be joined forever by that act. But we didn’t know then, that which we would know later.
We slept. And woke up happy, and for once, rested. I fixed us coffee, without any sugar or cream, my skills at providing condiments on boats being somewhat poor. We smiled at each other, through the bitter taste, and I’ve never had a better or sweeter cup of coffee. “What do you want me to do, Jen?” I said.
“Well, right now, we just need to get us to Ft. Lauderdale. Can you do that?”
“Sure, by tonight,” I said.
“Okay, when we get there, I’m going to go see my uncle. He’ll know what to do, when I give him the photos, and he’ll be able to get them to someone, without me getting killed by a trigger happy cop.” We spent the rest of the day cruising at high speed to the Florida Coast, and approached Ft. Lauderdale through Lake Mabel, which opens onto the Atlantic, and berthed at the public docks by Spangler Boulevard.
We went to the public phone at the dock, and Jenny dropped a dollar’s worth of quarters into the slot, and dialed a number. She spoke for a few minutes, and when she got off the phone, there was a very happy look on her face. “Uncle Jeff says he’s home, and that I can come over ASAP.”
We took a taxi to Lauderdale Harbors, where her uncle lived, and the driver stopped in front of the home on SE 15th St, a modest little bungalow. Jenny turned to me in the back seat, and said, “A kiss before we go?” and we kissed a sweet and loving kiss I always will remember.
We got out of the taxi, I turned to pay the driver, while Jenny stepped from the street up onto the neat Bermuda grass lawn, when suddenly a sound like a shot rang out from the bushes adjacent to the house. To my shock and horror, a red rose suddenly blossomed on Jenny’s blue shirt, right above her right breast. As though in slow motion, her mouth slowly opened as if she were going to tell me something, but no words came out, and the rose began to melt, running down the front of her shirt, as her hand came up to the spot where the flower had blossomed, her eyes moving downward to look at the red flower, then up at me, a questioning look, then she was falling, falling, falling and I heard a woman scream and scream and scream in anguish. I didn’t realize that it was me screaming, then kneeling by her prone body as she lay there, lifeless. I heard more shots ring out, and yelling, blue and red lights flashing, then two men gently lifting me to my feet, saying, “It’s all over, Mrs. Anderson,” and dragging me off.
They held me in a room at the police station. Fort Lauderdale police. FBI agents. New Jersey detectives, all asking me about things that were completely meaningless now. “Where’s Jenny?” I asked. No answer.
“Mrs. Anderson, we’re trying to get this whole thing straightened out….”
“Mrs. Anderson, did you know that law enforcement authorities were looking for this Jenny Clark before she abducted you?”
“Mrs. Anderson, we don’t think she abducted you for money…”
I wanted to scream at them, DAMN YOU, YOU KILLED MY ONLY LOVE!! SHE WAS INNOCENT, YOU BASTARDS!! YOU SHOULD HAVE KILLED ME, NOT HER!!
Finally, I did.
Then they listened. And then they said, “We’ll get back with you.”
I never heard anything. And, I returned to my life, but I knew now that it would never be with John Anderson. That it would never be with anyone else. And I would die, eventually, as I lived. And I would mourn until that blessed day came.
EPILOGUE
One gets used to changes in one’s life. Over time, even the deepest hurts scab over, the pain fades, the memories of loved ones dim…..
Do you believe that?
I don’t. Three months later, the pain was still there, the emotional wound suppurated and festered, and I began to think more seriously about ending the hurt forever. Can I do it, for you, Jenny? I wondered. How would I do it? I wanted to join Jenny, but I didn’t know how. I sat in my bedroom, shades drawn, listening to “Sweet Surrender,” by Sarah McLachlan, over and over, waiting to make that inevitable decision.
Just as I decided to make the final walk to the bathroom, to the waiting medicine cabinet, there came a knock at the door.
I opened it, and a pleasant looking young man stood there and said, “Mrs.Anderson.” Not asking me if I WERE Mrs.Anderson, but rather confirming for himself that I was, indeed, “Mrs. Anderson.”
“Mrs. Anderson,” he repeated, “My name is Michael Dunphy, I’m a United States Marshall. Here’s my badge, and identification card. Please look it over carefully, until you’re satisfied that it’s genuine. In addition, if you would like, I will stand outside your locked door while you call the United States Attorney’s office in Washington, at the Department of Justice, and they will be happy to confirm my identity. Once you feel safe, and certain that I am who I say I am, then I need to take you to a meeting in regard to the events of three months ago. Do you understand, and will you please cooperate?”
I said, “Okay,” and left him there to cool his heels while I looked up the U.S. Attorney’s office number in the governmental blue pages in the phone book. They confirmed that the young man was indeed who he said he was, and that he was ordered to bring me in for questioning. I guessed that finally, either they were going to get to me in regard to helping a (now) dead fugitive from justice, or maybe, just maybe, they would investigate the man who destroyed my love’s life.
We drove in silence to the federal building in DC, a big, imposing building in a city full of big, imposing buildings, right there on Pennsylvania Ave. He parked the car in an underground parking lot, then escorted me to an elevator that whisked us up to the 7th floor. We walked down a long hallway and he ushered me into a small room with 4 hard wooden chairs, and a medium sized conference table. I had never been interrogated by police before, so I wasn’t sure if I was getting the deluxe treatment, or if this were just the standard. He left me there, alone, and I waited for whatever was to come.
After about 15 long minutes, the door opened, and a wan girl with long ringlets of beautiful, golden hair limped into the room on a pair of crutches, and I exploded in joy. “Jenny!!!”
“Oh God, love, I thought you were dead!! No one would tell me anything!! Oh God, it’s SO good to see you!!” Tears were flowing from my eyes, and Jenny’s cheeks were wet, and we were both crying, and hugging, and I guess I could have died the happiest woman on earth then.
“Oh, sit down here, honey. Tell me what happened, please!! Oh God, I’ve missed you SO!!” I pulled a chair next to her, and held her hand, warm and firm, while she told me just what HAD happened.
“Well, when you and I stepped out of the taxi, the police were waiting for us. They’d been tracking your credit card usage, and a certain Capt. Jameson of the New Jersey State Police had a heads up that, if I ended up in Ft. Lauderdale, I’d probably end up at my Uncle Jeff’s. The only problem was, Capt. Jameson had another corrupt officer worm his way onto the Task Force that was looking for me, and ultimately, you. When we got out of the taxi, the crooked cop took a shot at me, a pretty good one, as I almost died right there. My Uncle Jeff shot the cop, the police arrested Uncle Jeff, arrested me, and fortunately had a paramedic nearby in case of trouble, and then started sorting things out.”
“It became very clear, once they saw those pictures, and finished the ballistics tests, that I had not been the one who was corrupt. Once it was verified that I was telling the truth, that meant that a lot of people were telling lies, and they’re still rounding them up. I was asked to go into the Witness Relocation and Protection Program, and I agreed on one condition.”
“What was that?” I asked.
“That we both be allowed into the program, if you were willing to do it,” she said, suddenly looking apprehensive. “Oh, I hope I’m not wrong in asking ….”
“I do,” I said, laughing. “I don’t care where, or how, we live, so long as it’s together,” I said. “Jenny, I love you, ” I said.
“And I love you, Jesse,” she said, and then we kissed, not for the last time, but one of many over the next 37 years.