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DUTIFUL SOLDIER
The retired spy, Allison McCray, sat at the edge of the bed and studied her lover, wondering if he had learned to see through her. Had he discovered her terrible secrets? Had her nightmares invaded his dreams?
He slept soundly, snoring loudly, which didn’t help her insomnia. For the past hour, she reread the day’s emails, totally accepting
that former co-workers had probably intercepted them and changed the content for their amusement. She also knew they opened her
mail and taped her phone conversations. She had spent 20 years monitoring the lives of suspected enemies both home and abroad;
sitting in a room viewing images captured from 20,000 feet above the earth and from halfway around the world, every intimacy
exposed in pixel perfect clarity.
She breathed a sigh of sadness; their relationship had begun to run its course. She knew not all relationships were meant to
last. Many ended soon after one’s thoughts turned to another or their mate bored them, and leaving seemed the reasonable option.
For her, however, leaving was unacceptable. He knew too much about her. How could he not? They had been together for 18 months,
her longest relationship. It is my mistake, she thought. I should have ended it sooner just as I had with previous boyfriends,
and now I have to become the dutiful soldier.
He was a pleasant looking man with brown eyes and long, brown hair, borderline handsome in the morning light, when they usually
made love. She closed the laptop, placed it on the floor, and slipped between the covers, snuggling up close, wrapping her arms
around him, and feeling the warmth of his back.
He stirred. She kissed his neck and ran her fingers along the inside of his thigh, caressing him until he became
aroused. His back arched. She turned him towards her, kissing him deeply. They moved slowly. She felt his love in his
tenderness, his sensitivity to her wants.
When finished, he brushed his hair back and laughed. “Where did this come from, my beautiful spy?
We both have an early day tomorrow.”
“Ex-spy,” she said. “Yes, I get to sit in my cubicle next to Charlie the grunter and sell insurance to
people who are too stupid to realize it is inevitable that disaster will strike. The math doesn’t lie.”
“I was never good at math, which is why, I suppose, the district manager is coming to the restaurant to check up
on me tomorrow morning; apparently, we’re racking up monster inventory cost.” He yawned and kissed her shoulder.
“Now let me sleep, babe. I’ve got to be sharp tomorrow. I can’t look as if I spent the night with a lioness.”
Lioness. I like that, she thought. At times he is special. He deserves better.
*
“Eight minutes,” she said, slamming the car door. “A new record. I didn’t think your mother
could work marriage into the conversation so quickly.”
“It’s her birthday,” he said. “Why should she hold back? Besides, she thinks we have a future. She sees
us as a couple. I’m no longer her lonely, never-been-in-a- relationship, 35-year-old, could-he-be-gay son.”
“Doesn’t she know your views on marriage and children?”
“No. Why kill the dream?” he said. “I know her nagging is tiresome, but it comes out of love.
She’s at the age where she doesn’t realize she’s being mean. She sees only one way for me to be
happy. Her way. Marriage. Children. Mortgage payments.”
“Fine,” she said and watched him enter the house. She didn’t follow. Instead she went for a walk through
the neighborhood, examining the lights shining through windows, checking inside parked cars, and listening
for foreign whispers in the air. She finally stopped at the top of St. Rita’s hill. Looking up at the stars,
she caught the movement of a man-made satellite. She raised her arms and yelled: “He’s a decent man.”
*
She entered the bedroom and found him masturbating, making noises she had never heard exit from his mouth.
Lord, at times he is such a fool. With his eyes closed and mouth open, he looked like a fish she had once
left on the dock. She had waited for it to die of asphyxiation, but the thing lingered: its fins rising
and falling, slowing winding down, torturing her with its suffering.
“Jesus, what the hell? Are you thirteen years old? You couldn’t wait until I got back?”
He turned to her without a shade of embarrassment. “You’re usually not in the mood when you’re
angry, and the more pissed you are the longer the walks, and you’ve been gone an hour.”
“Christ, look at you. Right out in the open. Next time use the bathroom. Don’t you know you’re
probably being watched and filmed right now?”
“Yeah? You think the video will go viral?”
“They don’t want a show. They want to know what you know.”
“If they, the dreaded ‘they’ are watching, they will know I know nothing. That’s what you like about me.
I generally don’t pay close attention to what you’re saying.” He flashed his ‘disarmament’ smile because
he knew it softened her anger.
She exhaled. “Why do most men seem happiest when jerking off?”
“Because all we have to do is please ourselves. I love you babe: death until we part kind of love; carrying your vulnerabilities;
accepting your paranoia; and if you ever did tell a secret, I’d hold it in silence under all methods of inquisition, that kind
of love. All I ask is that you trust me.”
“Trust and love. To you it’s all so simple. It’s not. It’s complicated.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” he said and turned back to his task. “Hey, babe, if you want to hop on and
catch a load of laundry, now is the time. We’ve reached the spin cycle.”
“You think you’re cute and clever, but you’re not. You’re crude,” she said, leaving the bedroom.
*
Downstairs, sitting in the recliner, she asked herself: Could he really hold my secrets? What did he mean by my
“vulnerabilities?” I survived in the service by being strong. I did my duty. I moved on. I didn’t dwell.
Vulnerable? She thought disgustedly. He knows nothing about vulnerability. Death lay everywhere: in the air,
in the water, in the food, beneath the earth, and in the home. No one was safe: A simple command and the earth
would tremble. Watch the ocean rise; thousands wash back into the sea. That is the price you pay for being weak,
for being vulnerable.
She leaned forward. Her hands shook. Sweat fell from her brow. What am I going to do now?
*
She returned to the bedroom. He slept on his side, facing the window.
Fully dressed, she lay on the bed and watched him. His chest rose and fell. His limbs twitched as if dreaming.
She leaned close, ran her fingers tenderly along the length of his neck, stopping on his jugular, feeling the
rhythm of his heart. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and waited for the dawn.
Frank T. Sikora is a graphic artist and writer for an
aerospace company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Email: Frank T. Sikora
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