MARY
Fuck. He disarmed me and I wasn’t even armed. My face is hotter than my ass, which is still stinging.
“Don’t do that again please.”
“I won’t if you don’t deserve it,” he says evenly, his handsome features so composed as he sits there, straight backed and powerful. “But I’ll put money on you deserving it sooner rather than later. Ready to get cleaned up and go to bed?”
“Fine,” I agree. He’s won this round and I don’t have the energy for another one. It’s way too early to be going to bed. Even with a 3 am start time, I’m going to get more than ten hours sleep if I somehow manage to fall asleep now.
“Good girl,” he says, his deep voice rumbling through me, going right to my core. God. I can’t even look at him. He spanked me. He fucking spanked me. I mean, not really. It wasn’t like he pulled my pants down… why the hell am I thinking like this?
“I’m going to take a shower.”
* * *
The shower is a tiny box-like space with a shower head that has seen better days and a floor that squeaks and flexes beneath my toes as I step under a fairly futile spray of water. The notion of washing my hair under this is a struggle, but I set to work anyway because it gives me time to think.
I’ve been out here for months now. I’ve seen some stuff. Mostly I’ve seen the backs of military men and smelled their sweat. At night, in the bars that inevitably spring up in bases, sometimes I hear their stories. These are some of the bravest and best people I’ve ever met.
Ken isn’t like most of these men. Something sets him apart. Something it’s hard for me to put a finger on. He’s… wilder somehow. When I look into his eyes, I get a feeling right in the pit of my belly. It’s a similar feeling to the one I get when I visit a zoo and look at a tiger behind wire. Not quite fear, but awe.
He’s an impressive specimen. There are a lot of men out here who are brave and muscle bound, but he’s the only one who gives me that feeling when I look at him. Maybe that says something about him. Or maybe it just says something about me.
I don’t know. I’m confused as hell. But I am glad for the privacy this little “bathroom” provides. There’s literally just a shower and the toilet on the other side. Basin big enough to bathe a mouse in for washing your hands. I’m guessing they don’t get used much out here.
I don’t like being naked much these days. The scars could be worse, but I wish they weren’t there at all. It’s not that they’re grotesque or dramatically disfiguring. You could mistake them for simple surgery scars, because that is what they are, thin, clean lines traversing my waist and abdomen.
Most people wouldn’t know what they were. Might think they were appendix scars, or maybe c-section scars. But I know what they are, and Ken will know what they aren’t, is my guess.
I’ve been marked forever, externally and internally. Physically and mentally. I can forget about it when I get dressed, but the minute my clothes come off, I see those marks again and I can’t pretend it was all some horrible nightmare.
He can’t see me naked. I won’t let him.
That decided, I dry myself off as best I can and climb into the fresh clothes I brought with me. Blue long sleeved shirt and pajama pants. They’re for men, really, but they’re loose and they’re comfortable and the collar makes them practically semi-formal.
When I get out of the shower, he’s turned the AC up a bit. It’s cool inside the CHU, and my bed is waiting for me, corner of the blankets turned back, my pack and boots stowed beneath. I didn’t do that. He did.
He’s sitting on his bed, laying ammunition out in order from biggest to smallest. The biggest is almost comically large.
“Is that a 50 cal round?”
“Uh huh. Desert Eagle,” he says, pulling back a piece of fabric over a case to reveal the drab olive of the monster weapon. Basically a handgun on the proverbial steroids.
I should know more about guns, but I mostly leave the shooting to other people. It’s not like they let embeds have weapons anyway. The rules of engagement are tight out here, and that’s caused most of the problems I’ve encountered so far. It’s not good enough to spot enemy actors. They have to have effectively engaged a unit first, which, in practice, means someone gets to be shot before the units around me can do a thing about it.
“Get into bed.”
I bristle at the order, but we do have a deal and I don’t want him to grab me and smack me again. Pajamas don’t offer the same level of protection my clothes did earlier.
I get into bed and lay down. Neither of us say anything. He turns the main light off and puts a smaller one on next to his bed. He can’t know this, but I never sleep in the dark anymore, so that little glow is perfect as I reluctantly close my eyes and attempt to go to sleep at an hour I haven’t slept at since I was about four.