The combat hardened US Navy fighter pilot made Captain in record time. A rising star, he was being groomed for promotion to Admiral. Everyone expected that he would soon command an aircraft carrier battle group. Part of his grooming was a stint as Captain of the big, “deep draft” Navy cargo ship I worked on as a young Marine. Apparently, for aviators, learning how to drive a really big ship is a pre-requsite to driving aircraft carriers and battle groups.
I found out what drove him. His marriage sucked! He did everything he could to keep us at sea, away from his wife.
Bad was turning worse. My sweet J was heading for full domestic revolt. The more our old house-guest complimented J in the kitchen, the less she wanted to be there. The less J wanted to cook the more over the top the guest's compliments and appreciation became. #Domestic_Oppression
All that would have been fine. Nothing in our marriage makes J the Designated Kitchen Gnome. The thing is, she actually likes to cook and he was stealing that pleasure from her.
We'd been grappling with the conundrum of how the kind words, sweet compliments and helpful hands of our house guest had managed to make every woman in his life feel oppressed in the kitchen. #Domestic_Oppression
I finally drew a line in the sand. “If you don't stop making J feel pressured in the kitchen, you're on your own for food.”
He was indignant; “But what am I doing wrong?” “I never complain.” “I try to be helpful.” “I'm appreciative.”
I was adamant; “Just shut up about the food. If you like it, eat it. If you don't,
A man's boot smashed the feminine neck to the floor, crushing the woman's soul amidst a swirl of brilliantly colored kitchen implements and food. #Domestic_oppression.
I could never understand why she displayed that painting so prominently in the home where she loved to cook and entertain. I could never understand why her husband was not offended by the piece.
They had built a progressive, modern, feminist household in the days before that was even a thing. While June Cleaver was still setting out cookies and milk, her kids were greeted with a list of housekeeping chores. By the husband's decree,
Figure skaters spin faster when they pull in their arms. Whips work the same way. As the lash curls around a naked leg, the tip picks up speed and bites more deeply into the vulnerable inner thigh. Her legs were bound slightly apart to allow space for this. Now the red stripes blended into a solid glow across her entire ass and upper legs. His arm was getting tired . . . and still she would not count any higher. Maybe that had something to do with the vibrator he'd carefully placed. But probably not. She showed no signs of arousal, except when he softened the strokes from time to time.
She has an emotionally difficult life, caregiving a dementia patient. This week had been worse than most. The patient hadn't done anything wrong. She hadn't done anything wrong either. In reality, nothing had happened, neither good nor bad. She just felt . . . something. Maybe frustrated, maybe tense, maybe she just needed more sane conversation without having to repeat herself in an endless circle of inane pleasantries. A few days ago she had snapped in her sweet, gentle way, and had said a sharp word. It was not a mean word,
Honeymooning on the beach, he asked his new bride if she wanted to go for a swim. It went something like this:
H: Would you like to go for a swim?
W: No, It's nice here sitting on the sand with you, but you can go swim if you want.
Husband gets up to leave and go swim.
W: Please don't leave me here alone.
H: You said I could swim.
W: Well, you CAN swim, but do you want to leave me here alone?
This little exchange cast a pall on the marriage from which it never recovered.
It only took a couple of minutes.
She led her husband to a big throne chair where everyone could watch, pushed him back into it, knelt between his knees on the hard concrete, and aggressively unzipped him. It was the most enthusiastic blow job I've ever seen. He was impressively big. Still she took him all the way down her throat and bobbed that way for many seconds (and it was a really awkward position, requiring her to bend her head what had to be painfully far back). When coming up for air, she filled in with energetic sucking and licking. It was a porn star perfect. And it conveyed all the love, connection and affection that a farmer shows as he slaps the milking machine on a dairy cow's teats.
Done, she puffed out her cheeks, furiously rubbed the cum off her lips and darted off to the bathroom to spit and wash her mouth out . . . leaving him alone to tuck his wilting member away as we mostly all began to avert our eyes.
She returned with a spring in her step, explaining “I've wanted to come here for so long, so I wanted to thank him for bringing me.”
She thought she was giving him a gift, but it was one more tragedy in the slow rolling disaster that was her life.
As often happens when a strong willed woman pairs with a normal man,
I heard the above lament from: a healthy, very fine person; a successful parent, well loved spouse, popular on Facebook, homeowner, and business owner: possessor of; multiple vehicles, a smart phone, hot and cold running water, space heating and cooling, indoor cooking, ample clothing, travel, health care, and pretty much everything kings of old would have killed to have. The lament goes on to assert that a misinterpretation of scripture led to undesired emotional state.
It's a common lament. Why do I feel so shitty? Shouldn't I be happy? Aren't we all supposed to feel good?
I call bullshit on the whole thought process. Who says we are supposed to feel good and feel good about ourselves all the time?
People who want something from us, that's who. In the old days
Dressed in asphalt spattered long sleeved protective gear, hat and boots, I headed out into the early morning dark in my heavily laden construction truck.
I barely noticed the black shadow on the side of the deserted, dark, highway on the edge of a tiny town. Whizzing past I saw a thumb out. Despite the fact that the passenger seat of my truck was buried in tools, I figured that the 4AM traveler could ride in back or something, so I got stopped and backed up. The thumb turned out to be attached to a magnificently pregnant woman, not someone I'd put in the back of an open pick-up.
She watched me dig hammers, trowels, lines, wrenches, safety gear, lunch box, water jugs and the other construction related stuff off the seat. By the time I was done, there was a solid wall of stuff between driver and passenger seat that reached almost to the ceiling.
She had to be at the hospital by 8AM. I would be working right across the street from the hospital. I pointed to the big empty drums in bed of the truck and explained that I'd needed to stop at the asphalt plant to have them filled but that we'd still be there in plenty of time for her appointment. I mentioned that there would be a clean restroom, coffee and snacks in the waiting area while the drums were filled.
As she climbed in she asked “are you safe?” Rule Number One in the USDA Official Handbook for Rapists and Murderers says:
Luman's Dad had led his soldiers on foot from Vera Cruz to Mexico City and back during the “real” war. To him, his Luman's regiment in The Army of the Potomac was pretty pathetic. They had been training in a cushy camp with tents outside Fredricksburg VA for almost 2 years.
Luman wrote to tell his dad otherwise. “You said we were soft. Well we just force marched 120 miles in 3 days and went into the line at the double quick (charged into battle at a dead run). We pushed the rebs back and saved the day.” The envelope is postmarked July 7th 1863, Gettysburg, PA. That was a few days after one of the hardest fought battles ever to take place in America. Luman went on to say that his regiment had left every single possession except muskets and cartridge boxes on the roadside.
The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) meanders 2653 miles from Mexico to Canada across some rather difficult terrain. In 1986, I was strong and young, just back from nearly 6 years of USMC infantry service. (Infantry are professional hikers.) Trained as I was, I still relied on backpacking guru, Colin Fletcher's
Somehow in her drunken stupor Bridget managed to track us down. When she stumbled into the cafe where we were hiding from her, George her current husband, seemed pretty annoyed. After all, she'd just recently been arrested for DUI. He was not happy that she'd found the keys he had hidden from her and driven drunk at night in the busy city to find us.
To prevent a scene, I persuaded her to go for a ride with me. We wound up walking a deserted beach alone 'till dawn as she slowly sobered up and unwound the greater story to me.
On that beach I fell in love. I fell in love with a woman wounded. I fell in love with what could have been. I fell in love with what could have been were it not for that stupid promise turned evil by . . . the best of intentions. I've never gotten over that night.
In her youth Bridget felt like she'd won the lottery when Sam, the chisel jawed, earnest, straight-arrow cop changed a tire for her then asked her out. Raised by Evangelical hypocrites who abused her horribly and sexually, Bridget felt safe in the arms of this most moral and chaste of men. A brief romance later, they married. Shortly after that Sam made the fateful promise that killed any hope for their joy.