GABY'S CHILD

 

Excerpted from my novel:

24

Gaby’s Child

April, 2004

 

It took Earl a long time to fall asleep that night, and when he did finally drift off, he had a terrible dream.

He was with a group of successful and important men, and he too was successful and important.  They were all elegantly dressed in tuxedos and black ties.  They were sitting around an elegant table in a huge elegant ballroom, sipping champagne, chattering profoundly, being very impressed with themselves.

He happened to glance across the ballroom into the foyer and saw the quick movement of a shadowy figure.  The figure drifted into the ballroom, and he saw that it was a woman, an ominously familiar woman.  An icy block of fear bloated his stomach as he realized it was Gaby.  She looked exactly as she had decades ago.  Her long, jet-black hair framed her pudgy face, and her beautiful brown eyes sparkled like diamonds.  She was grasping the hand of a small, ugly child, and the two of them strode into the ballroom and towards his table.  Soon they were close enough for him to realize that the child was a girl and that she was severely deformed.

He screeched his chair away from the table, but before he could get up, Gaby swung in front of him and tugged the little girl closer to herself, deliberately blocking his view of his friends.

“Stop here,” Gaby told the child, smiling meanly as her eyes drilled into his.

He gaped at the child, horrified to realize that she was not human; she was a monster.  A tiny, monkey-like monster with bulging black eyes and huge flabby ears.  Her skin was olive-colored and wrinkled and scaly, and tufts of gray hair swept out of her ears and nose.

All the elegant men at his table stood up and formed a circle around him and Gaby and the monster.  They murmured and whispered, and he knew that it was not Gaby and her monster that interested them.  It was him. His snotty friends wanted to watch his reaction to this hideous confrontation. 

          “Sit on the nice man’s lap, dear,” Gaby said to the monster.

The horrid creature leaped into his lap and giggled and tugged at the buttons on his shirt.  She stank of grime and urine, and he snapped his head away and breathed through his mouth.  Then, fearful that his friends would condemn him if he rebuked the poor creature, he forced himself to look at her again.

The monster was gone.  Instead, now snuggling in his lap was a sweet-scented, strikingly beautiful little girl.  Her bronze skin was smooth and soft, and she had Gaby’s long black hair and sparkly eyes.

And then suddenly the little girl was gone.  He looked down at his empty lap, and an icy grief overwhelmed him.

Gaby squeezed his hand.  Her meanness vanished and she smiled sadly. “I would have given you a wonderful love that you’ll never be able to find again.” she said.  “Because you didn’t even know how to see it when it was there.  You threw away our moment, Charlie.” 

25

The Eden Reflections

April, 2004

 

In the pitch blackness of three o’clock in the morning, Earl lunged out of bed and switched on the lamp. The dream had scared the hell out of him.  How could it be that after all these years such a ghastly thought would come into his consciousness?  He squinted at the photograph on the night table.  Jessica.  Warren’s daughter.  That was what had caused the dream.  Never before, not once, had he ever considered the possibility that he could have gotten Gaby pregnant.

Pamela Eden, yes.  Oh, yes, he could have gotten Pamela pregnant.  For the last few years he had been speculating that Pamela might have had his baby, and that would have been okay.  He would not have minded that.  He would have been pleased, in fact.

But not Gaby!

Jesus!  Don’t let that be true!

Couldn’t be!

He had used a condom.  He remembered that he always carried a rubber in his wallet back then.  But didn’t he drop the damn thing on the car floor?  And he’d been drinking.  Had he used the goddamned thing or not?  Of course he had.  Why in Christ was he worrying about this now?  There was no way that Gaby got pregnant by him.

But how would he ever have known?  He told her his name was Charlie Crutchfield, and only a few days later he went home on leave before shipping out for Germany.  Gaby could never have found him to tell him.  Gaby did not get pregnant.  The idea was crazy.

Pamela Eden though.  That was possible.  And for the last few years Earl had been thinking that it was even likely.

It was five years ago that the speculation that Pamela might have had his child became an obsession.  It was right after he’d found out that his heart was clogged with crap and he had to have a stent put in his ticker.  

That had put the fear of God in Earl and got him thinking about his mortality, and he found himself replaying the high points of a finite life.  The highest point, he decided, was the afternoon in England with Pamela Eden.

The epiphany had occurred when he returned to work a few days after the stent implant procedure.  He was introduced to a new employee, and they took their coffee break together and had a chatty conversation.  The woman told him that she’d been very excited the day she learned she had been hired, but was even more excited the next day when she learned that she was pregnant.

“Do you have any children?” she had asked him.

“Maybe.  But none that I can declare on my tax returns,” he quipped.

Earl had used that line dozens of times before, but when he said it to this woman he had a  profound realization that there was no way to be absolutely positive that he had never fathered any children, unless he were to have a doctor do some tests and pronounce that he was sterile and always had been.  He had long ago stopped believing that the child Bonnie lost had been his.  He had convinced himself that Dave Brubaker had fathered her baby.

But Pamela Eden could have gotten pregnant by him.

The possibility that he had a grown son or daughter somewhere in England did not distress Earl.  If his son or daughter was healthy and comfortable, then knowing about such a circumstance would even please him. 

Earl was  not uncomfortable conjecturing that he might have fathered Pamela Eden’s child.  He had long ago come to believe that Pamela had seduced him because she wanted to get pregnant, and thus be able to get discharged from the Royal Air Force.  She told him that she hated military life, and could get out of it if she had a baby.  There could have been no other reason why such a beautiful girl would have randomly chosen him for a casual sexual encounter.  He was an American GI.  Eventually, he’d be far away.  He would never have to be told about the baby, and he wouldn’t be around to create problems.

 

   

 

     26

Pamela Eden

July, 1968

 

In the summer of 1968, Staff Sergeant Earl Streeter was two years into what he was experiencing as an unpleasant tour of duty in Frankfurt, Germany, and he was counting the days until he would be reassigned back to the United States.  But that was still a year off, so one gloomy July afternoon he made up his mind to get away for awhile and to go someplace that was a little more like America.  He put in for a week of military leave and made a plane reservation for London, England.

In London, as Earl was checking into a modestly priced hotel, he was told by the desk clerk that even though he’d made a reservation he could only have the room for one night because the hotel, and just about every other hotel in London, was completely booked up for the next few days.  He frowned at the clerk, but signed in and was directed to a room on the third floor.

The room on the third floor was small and dreary.  Earl dumped his suitcase on the bed, and then hurried out to see what the great city of London was like.

The great city of London, however, was not eagerly awaiting his appearance.  He had a lonely, boring evening.  After eating a supper of chopped sirloin and fries at a nearby restaurant, he went joyriding for an hour or so on the tube.  Then he poked around in Piccadilly Circus, and had a brew or two.  That only made him more lonely.  He looked up at the glittering marquee of a movie theater.  The Odd Couple was playing, and he supposed that a good comedy might fix his mood.  He smiled ironically as he went into the theater lobby, thinking that he could have stayed in Frankfurt and seen the same movie at the base theater.

The movie was funny, but it did not get him out of the funk.  This trip to England was a complete bust, he decided.  He was no more able to blend into the London scene than he had been the Frankfurt scene.  From the theater, he went back to his hotel room and was asleep before midnight.

It was raining when Earl got out of bed at eight in the morning.  He peered out of the window at the gloom of the street below, and it strangely cheered him.  He snapped on the small lamp on the writing table, and the warm glow made the little room now seem homey and pleasant.  A hearty breakfast and some hot coffee would set his day up just right.

“What time do I have to check out?” he asked the room clerk a few minutes later.

“By twelve o’clock, sir.”

“Is there a good place to have breakfast nearby?”

The clerk directed him to a restaurant a couple of blocks away and asked if he would like to borrow an umbrella.

“No thanks.  I’ll just stay close to the buildings and jog along,” Earl replied cheerfully.  He looked at the stacks of newspapers on the counter and bought The London Daily Mail, thinking that it would make a good souvenir.

Earl went to the restaurant that the clerk had suggested, and was pleased because it was so much like the diners and coffee shops back home.  There were several booths with Formica-topped tables and benches upholstered in blue vinyl.  In the center of the restaurant was a three-sided counter, around which a dozen or more husky men, most of them garbed in work coveralls, squatted on low stools, occupied with their breakfast or just jabbering over coffee.  Strangers all, and yet Earl felt an unvoiced kinship with them.  He slipped onto a stool and a waitress came to him immediately.

“Eggs over easy,” he said, “with home fries, bacon, and coffee.”

While he waited for his food, he looked over The London Daily Mail.

The banner headline read THE POPE’S BITTER PILL.

Evidently the Catholic world was in turmoil because the pontiff  had decreed that it was morally wrong to use birth control pills to prevent conception.  Next to that story, with a smaller headline, was a report that two men had been shot down in a South London pub and that one of them had died.  Same old shit no matter where you go in the world, Earl mused.  Makes birth control seem like a pretty good idea.

The breakfast was excellent.  When Earl finished eating, he lingered over his coffee, smoked a cigarette, and read some more of the paper.  Every now and then he looked out of the window and watched the rain splashing over the dreary street, and he felt quite relaxed and was now enjoying his aloneness in a foreign country.  He reflected on all of the places that he had seen since joining the Air Force six years ago.  He had been sent overseas right out of technical school, and had spent fifteen months in Taiwan.  En route, he had set foot in Hawaii, the Philippines, Wake Island, and Guam.  After Taiwan, he did two years in San Antonio and then was assigned to Germany.  Since being stationed in Germany, he had visited Switzerland, Holland, Luxembourg, France, and now England.  He was a man of the world.  He’d been to exotic places and seen and done things that his buddies back home could never even imagine.

Charlie Crutchfield and Andy Kruger led lives that were mundane.  Those guys had gotten married too young, and now they were saddled with wives and kids, and lived in boxy apartments not twenty miles away from where they’d spent their entire lives.  What the hell kind of a deal was that?

And yet?  Maybe they had been the smart ones.  They had someone to come home to every night.  They had kids to give them immortality.

Earl’s mood of well being was starting to slide.

Never mind that.  There are  other things to think about right now.  He would have to vacate the hotel room at noon, so he could not stay in London, and he did not want to fly back to Frankfurt after only one day in England.  What he could do, he decided, was to head up to Chicksands.  The Air Force base was only fifty miles from London, and he had a buddy who had been transferred to Chicksands from Frankfurt.  Hell, yes.  That was where Gary Saxon had been sent just after Christmas.  Earl would be able to bunk on the base and it wouldn’t cost him a cent, and Saxon could show him around the local pubs.  They’d have a few beers, and maybe even hook up with a couple of broads.

Enthused now, Earl paid his tab and hurried out of the restaurant and back to the hotel, where he packed quickly and checked out, and then headed for the train station.

 

The train took him to Bedfordshire, and from there he got a bus to the air base.  The rain had stopped, and just as he stepped out of the bus in front of the squadron headquarters the sun broke out and the afternoon was warm and bright, as was his mood when he strode into the orderly room.  

An Airman Third Class, who looked too young to be in the military, was seated behind a metal desk near the entranceway.  Earl thumped his suitcase down on the floor, and the airman bolted out of his chair and snapped up a precise salute to Earl, who was not in uniform and was not an officer anyhow. Earl grinned.

“At ease, Airman Lucas,” he said, noting the nameplate over the pocket of the airman’s crisply pressed shirt.  “No salutes for noncoms.  I’m Sergeant Streeter.  I’m on leave from Frankfurt, and I need quarters for a couple of days.  Can you fix me up?”

“No sweat, sir. There’s a room empty right at the end of this bay.  I’ll just go and get you some sheets and blankets.”

“No, I don’t think you want to do that.  The First Shirt would really get pissed if you left the orderly room unattended.  Just tell me where the linen room is.  I can get my own stuff.”

“Right, sir.”

“Do you know Sergeant Saxon?”

“Tech Sergeant Saxon?  Yes sir.  He works over in Civil Engineering.”

“You think it would be okay if I call him from here?”

“Sure thing, sir.  Just dial two six three.”

“Listen, troop,” Earl said.  “You don’t need to keep calling me ‘sir’.  I’m a non-com.  I’m only a staff sergeant.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right.  Sorry about that, Sarge.  I got to stop doing that.  It makes me sound like a jeep.”

“How long you been in?”

“Eight months.”

“Eight months?  Hey, you really lucked up getting this cherry assignment right out of tech school.”

The airman frowned and sat down at his desk.  “It don’t seem like no cherry assignment to me.  They told me when I enlisted that I’d almost be sure to get a base near home.”

Earl laughed.  “They lied.  They always do.  Hell, I re-upped because I wanted to come here to Chicksands.  And I ended up in Germany.”

“So it looks like I could do all my time here,” Airman Lucas lamented.

“Hey, how bad can that be?  You’re only a quick train ride to London.  Lots of good looking girls to choose from there.”

“I guess.  But the thing is, I got a girl back home.  We’re suppose to be getting married.”

Earl stifled another laugh.  Had he once been as green and naïve as this kid?

“They don’t just sit at home and wait,” he counseled.  “And you shouldn’t either.  What’s your tour of duty?  Three years, right?  That’s a long time, buddy.”

“She’ll wait though.  She will,” Airman Lucas said, but did not seem convinced.  He pushed the phone across the desk, and Earl scooped up the receiver and spun three digits on the dial.

“This is an unclassified line.  Civil Engineers.  Sergeant Saxon speaking.”

“Hey, how they hanging, Sax?  This is unclassified Sergeant Earl Streeter.  I’m over here in your orderly room.”

“Hey, what’s happening, ol’ buddy?  You get reassigned?”

“No such luck.  I’m on leave.  I couldn’t get laid in London, so I came up here to check things out.”

“How long you staying?”

“It depends what I can get into.  If all there is to do is drink, then I might as well head back to Frankfurt.”

“Well, listen,  I don’t get off till five.  I’ll be heading over to the NCO club if you want to have a couple of pops.”

“You know what?  That was going to be my next stop anyhow.  But if I’m not there when you show up, it’ll be because I hooked up with a hot little broad.”

Saxon laughed heartily.  “Not going to happen, pal,” he said.  “Not here on base anyhow.  All’s you’ll pick up in the NCO club is pretzels out of the bowl, or pickled eggs to go with your beer.”

“In that case, I’ll be on the plane tomorrow.”

“Listen, man, I got to get back to work.  I’ll see you later over at the club.”

“If I’m still there.”

“You’ll be there.”

Airman Lucas had rushed out of the orderly room, and now, as Earl was hanging up the phone, had returned with sheets, a blanket, and a pillow.

“You’re all set, Sarge.”

Earl followed him down the bay to the empty room at the end.  The airman set the bedding on the bunk, and Earl stowed his suitcase in the steel locker.

“Anything else you need, sir?  I mean sergeant.”

“No.  I’ll settle in later.  Just point me in the direction of the NCO club, and I’m all set.”

 

When Earl came into the NCO club lounge, he gazed appreciatively at the three pretty girls, a blonde and two brunettes, who were sitting together at a table near the bar. They were the only people in the lounge, other than the barkeeper.

Earl mounted a stool at the bar, ordered a bottle of Bud, and asked the barman, “Where is everybody?   Don’t any of the airmen here drink?”

The barman set a bottle and glass in front of Earl.  He spoke, but Earl could not hear what he said because of the laughter, giggling, and jabbering of the three girls who had vacated their table, bottles and glasses in hand, and were now coming over to the bar.

One of the brunettes slipped onto the stool to Earl’s right, the blonde took the stool on his left, and the other brunette took the stool next to her.  The three girls set their drinks on the bar and smiled at Earl.

And Saxon said there was no action in the club, Earl mused.  But he was guarded and suspicious.  Why did these fantastic babes choose to cluster around him when every other stool and all the tables in the club were available?

“Hellow,” the blue-eyed blonde said cheerily.

“Hello, yourself,”  Earl said, smiling at her warily.

“I think you are new here,” she said.

“Brand new.  I just got here today.”

Earl took her for early twenties.  She was the prettiest of the three pretty girls.  Her short blonde hair curled around her ears and over her brow, and there was just a touch of red on her cheeks and on her full, sensuous lips.  She was wearing faded denims and a man’s plaid shirt that did not subdue her bustiness.  Her blue eyes seemed to be evaluating Earl and saying naughty things.

“We’re all in the Air Force too,” she said.

“The Royal Air Force,” the girl on her left added.

“In Her Majesty’s service,” the girl on Earl’s right said, and giggled.

Earl nodded.  “How did you come up here?” he asked.  “Do you have a car?  I’ve heard it’s pretty expensive to have a car in England.  Are you officers, maybe?”   

“We came on the bus,” said the girl on the right, and giggled again.

Earl wasn’t listening.  Only the blonde had his full attention.

“What’s your name?” the blonde asked.

“Earl.”

“My name is Pamela.  I’m only a corporal.  We’re all corporals, so I guess we shouldn’t even be here, but they always let us come in.”

 The barman appeared.  “Don’t ever sweat that,” he said, “Pretty girls are always welcomed here in the club.”

Earl believed that the girl who said her name was Pamela was telling the truth when she said that they were all WAFS in the Royal Air Force, but he was puzzled that such attractive girls would be in the military.  It had been his experience that most WACS and WAFS were either plain or flat out homely, and were often butchy.  At least that was true of the American variety.  Maybe the English military was different.  Maybe it was just harder for the English girls to find civilian jobs.

Well, WAFS or not, Earl was sure that these three girls were not hookers and, for whatever reason, they were interested in him and he was certainly interested in Pamela.

“So why would you come up here in the middle of the afternoon?” he asked Pamela.  “It’s not like there’s anything going on at this time of day.  I mean if you just wanted a beer or something, don’t you have a club on your base?”

“If you want to know, my name is Susan,” snipped the giggly WAF, apparently to remind Earl that Pamela was not the only girl at the bar.

“And I’m Judy,” said the other brunette.

Pamela smiled at Earl and covered his hand with hers.  “It was Susan’s idea.  She’s had a bit of a head start on us.”

The gentle squeeze of Pamela’s fingers sent heat all the way down to Earl’s kneecaps.  This is very weird, he thought.  Why has this beautiful girl targeted me?

“You don’t have day duty?” he asked, in a voice that had become husky.

“Today I start at four o’clock.”

“That soon?  You’ll be cutting it close, won’t you?”

“Oh, yes.”  She withdrew her hand and picked up her beer.  “But Susan and Judy don’t have to go to work.  They might stay here with you if they like.”

“Earl doesn’t care a whit if we stay or not,” said Judy.  “He fancies you, Pammy.”

Pamela squeezed Earl’s hand again and put her face tantalizingly close to his.  “We’re having a dance at the base tomorrow night.  You should come.”

“You mean with you?”

“Oh, yes.  Unless you fancy Judy or Susan.”

“You will come, won’t you?”  Judy urged.

Susan giggled.

“I’ll come.  I’ll come.  Oh, yes, I’m coming.”       

This is just too fantastic to be really happening.  Earl knew that if he was bullshitting with his buddies back home, or with the guys in the barracks, and he told them that he had walked into an NCO club, and three hot looking broads hit on him, those guys wouldn’t believe a friggin’ word of it.

“There’s a pub in Bedford.  We can meet there tomorrow afternoon,” said Pamela, moving so close to Earl that he could feel the fire of her breath.

He took the plunge and he kissed her.  It was an earth-rocker of a kiss, and he did not want to pull away, but knew he had to back off before the barman put a stop to it.  This was a military facility after all, and there were now other people in the lounge.  So he drew away.  But his eyes stayed with her.

“Pammy, I have sad news,” Susan said gleefully.  Earl looked at her, and she was looking at her watch.  “We have to go now.  I just saw the bus going into the roundabout.”

“Oh, we better hurry,” said Judy.

Pamela was still gazing at Earl.  “Walk with us to the bus stop?”

“Okay.”

Earl finished his beer and left some money on the bar, and they rushed out of the club just as the bus pulled up in front of the entrance.

Susan and Judy hopped into the bus, but Pamela lingered with Earl and held both of his hands.  He thought that she looked perplexed, as though trying to make a decision.

“So, we’ll meet at the Lion’s Pub tomorrow in Bedford?” she suggested.

“The Lion’s Pub. Yes.”

“Around four o’clock.”

“Okay.” 

“Are you getting aboard then, miss?” the driver asked.

Pamela looked up at the driver, and then at Earl.  She clasped his hand tightly and tugged him with her, up and into the bus.  He got aboard eagerly, not knowing what she could have in mind if she really had to report for duty.  But he did not want her to just disappear.  He wanted to be with her for as long as he could, even if it was only for the time of the bus ride to her base.  Saxon would wonder what had happened to him, but, what the hell, this was the adventure of a lifetime.  How many times did a guy ever get lured away on a bus by a beautiful woman?

Susan and Judy had gotten seats together, and Pamela sat down in front of them, next to a young guy whom Earl assumed was an American airman.  There were no other unoccupied seats, so Earl stood beside Pamela and gripped the back-rest of her seat.

The bus roared to life, made a U-turn and headed away from the base.

Susan put her arms on Pamela’s backrest, put her chin on her folded hands, and giggled.  She mumbled into Pamela’s ear.  “Why are you sitting with this bloke?  Don’t you fancy Earl anymore?”

Pamela looked back at her and smiled.  She took Earl’s hand and lifted it for Susan to see.  “Earl is right here.”  She swung his hand down again, pressing her own hand against his crotch as she did so.

Twenty minutes later, the bus turned onto the Royal Air Force base, and stopped in front of a gray two-story building.  Earl followed Pamela, Susan, and Judy out of the bus and along the walkway.

“Do you like my abode?” Pamela asked.

“Your what?”

“This is my abode,” she said, pointing at the building.

“Oh, abode.  Oh, yeah, very nice.  We call it a barracks.”

“Yes.  It is a barracks.”

Earl wondered if she would lead him inside.

“You don’t mind waiting out here for me, do you?” Pamela said.  “I’m going to put on my uniform.  I shan’t be long.”

“Sure.”

When Pamela came out of her abode ten minutes later, she was wearing a blue-gray uniform with pale blue blouse and a black tie at the throat, and did indeed look like an English WAF.  Earl was discouraged.  He did not think that she would be planning to take off her clothes any time soon.

Pamela smiled reassuringly, as though reading his thoughts.  She kissed his cheek, took his hand, and led him along the walk, around to the rear of the building.

“Where are we going?”

“To work,” she chirped.

“Where’s that?”

“In here.  This is the telephone room.”  She had stopped at the far end of the building, and had inserted a key into the knob of a narrow red door.  She opened the door just enough to gain entry and motioned Earl to hurry inside.

“Before someone sees you,” she said, and quickly followed him inside.

Except for the telephone switchboard, at which a chubby, redheaded girl was perched on a high swivel-stool, the room was like a cozy den.  There was a sofa and a coffee table.  A pin-up lamp above the sofa illuminated the room with a subdued glow.  On a small table in a corner there was a coffee maker and several mugs, and next to the table was a tiny refrigerator.  There were no windows.

“Oh, yeah.  This is nice,” said Earl, looking at the sofa.

“How has it been, Janie?” Pamela asked.

Janie popped down from the stool.  She looked at Earl and smirked knowingly.  “You brought a bloke with you, did you?  Well, that’s good.  It’s been very slow all afternoon.  The board hasn’t lighted up in an hour.  So you’ll be having someone to chat with.”

Pamela touched her lips with a finger.  “Don’t be telling anybody.”

“Well, of course not.  Why would I ever?  Maybe tomorrow I’ll bring my own bloke along.”  She took her jacket from the back of the door and shrugged it on.  She looked at Pamela slyly, winked at Earl, and then went out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her.  Pamela pushed the locking button on the knob.

“She won’t say anything, will she?” Earl asked.

Pamela shook her head.  “Never.”  She hooked her purse on the backrest of the stool.  Earl watched her pick up a clipboard and a pen from the switchboard.  “Is it four o’clock yet?” she asked.

“Just four.”

Pamela signed a form and then set the clipboard aside.  She removed her jacket, hung it on the back of the door, and removed the tie and put it on the switchboard counter.  She sat down on the sofa, and Earl sat next to her.

“Janie won’t tell anybody that you came in here,” she said.  “But somebody might come along later.  I’m afraid you can’t stay very long.  Perhaps only half an hour, and then you better go.  It’s not much time, is it?”

“It’s enough time.”

Pamela’s expression clouded.  “Enough time for what?” she said testily.

Earl could feel the heat in his face.  He had miscalculated and had insulted her.

Pamela smiled impishly.

“Enough time for what?” she teased, and unbuttoned her blouse.

 

 

27

After The Lovin’

July, 1968

 

 Amazingly, while they were having sex on the sofa the phones never rang.  But when they had finished, and while they were still in an embrace, the lines buzzed frantically, and little bulbs flashed all over the switchboard.  Pamela hopped up, pulling up her panties as she hobbled across the room.

Earl, sitting up on the sofa now, was loving the sight of Pamela perched on the swivel stool, wearing only panties and a bra, briskly pushing plugs into the switchboard and responding with polite dignity to the callers, one of whom she addressed as General Blair.  Earl felt an immensely satisfying pride.  This was like a scene in a movie.  The guys back home would never believe it had happened to him.

After awhile the phone lines were quiet again. Pamela put on her skirt and blouse, and came to sit beside Earl on the sofa.  She put her hand on his cheek and was about to kiss him when there was a knock at the door.

Pamela smiled and squeezed his hand. “That will be Brian,” she said.  “He comes by every day at this time to see that I’m alright.  He fancies me.”

“What about me being here?”

“Oh, he won’t like that.  But don’t fret.”

She got up and unlocked the door, and Earl watched a short, homely man in RAF uniform come into the room.  He looked to be in his thirties at least, and certainly too old to interest Pamela.  He scowled at Earl.

 “Pamela,” he said coldly, as she closed the door behind him.

“Hello, Brian.  Brian, this is my friend Earl.  He’s an American.”

“How you doing, Brian?” Earl said, and rose from the sofa.

Brian nodded dismissively.

“Earl’s coming to our dance tomorrow night.”

Brian went over to the switchboard and flipped the pages of the log.  “You’re on until eleven, are you?  And then Emma?”

"Yes.  You know that’s the schedule, Brian.”

He frowned, and again scowled at Earl.  “I’ll be going then.”

Pamela opened the door and he went out.  She giggled as she locked the door.

“That was short and sweet,” Earl said.  “I think he was pissed.”

“Yes, he’s gone off me, he has,” Pamela said.  “He fancied me.  And he had put me up on a pedestal, but now he sees it differently.”

“What would happen to you if he told somebody I was in here?”

“Brian would never do that.  He wouldn’t go that much off me.  And he’s such a priss, he wouldn’t even want to talk about what we were getting up to.”

Earl kissed her and coaxed her back to the sofa.  “Let’s be getting up to it again,” he said.  She giggled and tickled his ribs.  He didn’t like that.  He wanted to have sex, not play like children.

They had sex.

Earl stayed in the telephone room for hours longer than the half hour Pamela had allotted him.  After the sex, they drank coffee, and smoked, and talked, and he felt more comfortable with Pamela than he’d ever felt with any other girl.

After awhile, Pamela suggested that they should have something to eat.

“Do you like baloney?” she asked.

“Baloney?”

She popped up from the sofa and went to the small refrigerator.  “We have some baloney and bread.”

They ate baloney sandwiches and drank some more coffee.  And afterwards, Earl flopped back on the sofa, and gazed contentedly at Pamela, her face so pretty in the cozy cone of lamplight.  He fantasized being with her forever, he and Pamela, being eternally happy with each other.  They had made love twice.  That was a bond.  He was surprised to realize that he hoped that it was love, and not just sex.

Pamela pressed against him and kissed him lightly on the lips. 

“Again?” he asked hopefully.

“No.  Not again,” she murmured.  “Let’s have a bit of a nap.”  She curled her legs up on the couch, and put her head in his lap.

Earl slid down a bit, and rested his head against the back of the couch.

“What about the phones?” he said, as he too became drowsy.

“They probably won’t ring anymore tonight,” she said sleepily.

It was after ten when they both awoke and sat up at hearing the click of a key in the lock.  The door opened and a young woman in a RAF uniform entered.

“Hello, Emma.  You’re very early tonight,” Pamela greeted her.  “This is my friend, Earl.”  And to Earl she said, “Emma’s come to take my place.  We can go now.”

“I’m quite early tonight, am I not?” Emma said cheerfully.  Unlike Janie, she did not joke about Earl’s presence, and unlike Brian, she was not annoyed.  As far as she was concerned, or so it seemed to Earl, his presence was as natural as a piece of furniture.  “Be off then, Pammy.”

“We’ll have to call a taxi ride for Earl.”

“Oh, yes, you will,” said Emma.  “No buses this late.”

“Can we call from here?”  Earl asked.

“Oh, no, no,” Emma cautioned.  “You won’t want to be going through the switchboard.”

“There’s a telephone box outside,” said Pamela.  “We’ll call from there.”

While Pamela was on the telephone ordering a taxi for him, Earl gazed unhappily at her.  He was afraid that once he left her, she would evaporate into a wispy memory, as though she had never been real to begin with.

“He’ll come soon,” Pamela said, and put the receiver on the hook.  “So then.  Tomorrow at the pub?”

“I wish we could be together all night.”

“We’ll be together again tomorrow.”

Sleep was tortuously elusive for Earl that night.  Pamela’s aura was in the bunk with him, whispering seductively, stroking him, kissing him, nipping at his neck.  He wanted her now and forever, and he was miserable with the knowledge that he was not going to be able to keep her.

Eventually he fell into a half-sleep, but just before dawn he was wide awake again.  He got up, dressed, went out of the billets, and walked about the base.   He saw several airmen heading into the mess hall, and decided that breakfast was a good idea.  He would chow down and then later in the morning he could take the bus into Bedfordshire, and check the town out.  He’d need some fresh civies for the dance tonight, and there was sure to be a shop in town where he could pick up a shirt and a necktie.  Tonight he would be with Pamela again.  Just thinking about seeing her sent a squadron of butterflies soaring across his stomach.

 

Earl got on the bus at eight o’clock, and it made its first stop in a village a few miles down the road.  He was surprised when Pamela’s friend Judy got on board.  She was in uniform.  She saw him immediately and came to sit beside him as the bus lurched into traffic again.

“Well, Judy.  This is a coincidence, isn’t it?”

“Not very much, actually.  I’m off to work.”

“Don’t you live on the base?”

“I do.  But I have cousins here.  And sometimes I stay with them.”

“Nice to be stationed near family.”

“Oh, yes.  And where are you bound so early?”

“To look at the town, and check out the shops.”

“You’ll see Pamela tonight?”

“Definitely.”

“She’s very fond of you, you know.  Very fond.”

“I hope so.”

“Do you fancy her?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think you want to marry her?”

Earl laughed.  “That’s blunt.”

“Well, why not?  If you keep seeing each other and if you fancy each other a lot.”

“I’d like to keep seeing her, but I have to go back to Frankfurt in a couple of days.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have to go back to Germany.  That’s where I’m stationed.”

“Are you not at the Chicksands base?”

“No.”

“You aren’t here all the time then?”

“No.”

“Oh.  But we thought you were.  We all thought you were.”

“I’ve just been staying there for a couple of days.  I’m on leave.”

Judy looked at him with an expression of dismay, as if she personally had been betrayed, as if they had all been deliberately deceived.  She did not speak again.  A few minutes later the bus halted at the RAF base and Judy mumbled a goodbye and hurriedly departed.

Earl was puzzled by her brusqueness.  But, thinking about it, he recalled that although he’d told the girls that he’d come to Chicksands from Frankfurt, he’d never made it clear that it was only on a leave.  Apparently, Pamela had expected that he was going to be around for awhile.  If she had assumed that he’d been permanently assigned to Chicksands, that was probably why she was so willing to have sex with him.  Maybe she was looking for an American husband, and he was a handy candidate.  He now suspected that Pamela would not have been so accommodating if she had known how transient their relationship was going to be.

And now that Judy had been so put off by his revelation, he was sure that she would tell Pamela what she had learned.

 

Earl got back to the barracks at mid-afternoon.  He shaved and showered and put on his newly purchased slacks and polo shirt.  He had not eaten since breakfast, and probably should have had some lunch in town.  But he was so high on thoughts of Pamela, and anticipation of being with her soon, that his stomach was too fluttery to accept food.

In only an hour, he would be back on the bus and heading to the Lion’s Pub for his rendezvous with Pamela.  Hopefully, being with her would calm him, and they could have a meal before heading for the dance.  Meanwhile, he would kill the time before the bus arrived by having a beer at the NCO club.

He was on the way out of the billets, and had just passed the orderly room, when Airman Lucas rushed out to the bay after him.  “Sergeant Streeter.  Hold up, Sarge.  I got a call for you in the orderly room.”

It can’t be good news, Earl was thinking as he followed Lucas back down the hall and into the orderly room.

He grimaced as Lucas handed him the receiver.

“Hi, Earl?” a girlish voice said.

“That’s me.”

“It’s Judy, Earl.  I’m calling for Pamela.”

He knew what he was going to hear.  He was not going to see Pamela tonight.

“Pamela had to rush home.  Someone’s sick in her family,” Judy told him.  “She asked me to let you know that she’s sorry about tonight.”

“She went home?”

“She got on the train an hour ago.”

“Do you know when she’ll come back?”

“Not for awhile.  It will depend on what happened.”

Earl listened for a lie in Judy’s voice.

“I hope it’s nothing serious,” he said.

“Yes, well we certainly all do.  But I just wanted to call and let you know, so you would not be wasting your evening.”

There was a long pause.  Judy did not suggest that he come to the dance anyhow.  Probably because it was all bullshit, and Pamela was just blowing him off.

So that was that.

He wasn’t going to see Pamela tonight, and knew that he would never see her again.