As for Officer Blair, he was let go from his position
at the police department. We never did find out where the files
were emailed to. Bas and David both think we will eventually hear
from a military or government agency. But first, they have to get
through David and Bas’ security system. If they are smart, they
will give us a call and ask for a meeting; if they’re not so smart,
they may find out how accurate David’s mini-drone prototype is. I
hear the little drones flying all around the property, while they
are being tested. It sounds like a colony of little demented
dragonflies.
Boys and their toys!
In Love with Teresa
March
A Team Red Novella
1.5
T. Hammond
In Love with Teresa March: A Team
Red Novella 1.5
Copyright © Jul 2013 by T.
Hammond
Previously published with the
Shades of Pink Anthology
Published by Tina Hammond at
Smashwords
Disclaimers
I made it up. Truly.
Yeah, I’m a dope. Who falls for a woman in a
photograph? Granted, she’s crush-worthy, but if someone had told me
they were instantly infatuated by a woman’s picture, I’d be sending
them to the medical tent to talk to one of the psychiatrists. I
know guys who have movie star photos pinned to the inside of their
lockers, or folded up in little squares so the picture can be
tucked away in a uniform pocket. Soldiers fantasize about their
pin-up girl in stolen moments, when they need to remember all the
things they’re fighting for. What I felt was more than a fleeting
crush. When I looked at the images of Teresa March, I wasn’t
thinking about sex; I was thinking about forever.
First time I saw her picture was after Bas, Senior
Chief Sebastian Declan, read me a letter from his sister Janey. It
was a light-hearted narration of everyday events, told by a sweet
woman who obviously loved and missed her big brother. Bas motioned
me toward his computer so I could look at the photos she had
attached.
Janey looked like her brother. As he had described,
she was a Barbie doll personified with long, fluffy blond hair,
clear blue eyes, and a pretty bow-shaped mouth in a heart-shaped
face. She was a lovely girl, well, a woman really, since Bas told
me she had just turned twenty-seven. Her figure was voluptuous,
with full breasts and wide hips, emphasized by a tiny, nipped-in
waist. Janey’s sex symbol body was startling when matched with her
wholesome features.
I liked blonds, they always drew my eye when we
visited the bars off-base. In each of the sixteen photos attached
to the letter, Janey was laughing and vamping for the camera. She
was adorable. But it was the woman next to her in every picture
that caught my eye.
Bas told me her name was Teresa March, and he planned
to marry her one day.
I think her eyes were the first thing which caught my
attention. Deep, dark brown, with touches of green like spokes of a
wagon wheel, flaring out from her irises. The thick, black lashes
are long, curving away in soft arcs from her laughing eyes. In
every picture I’d seen of her, her face has been bare of artifice -
no makeup.
Maybe it was her smile I first noticed. She has a
great smile, wide and welcoming. I pull out the folded picture I
printed off my computer and feel a grin tug my mouth. I can’t help
wanting to smile right along with her, to share the joke or that
moment in time that brought the sparkle to her eyes and the tilt to
the corner of her lips.
Teresa is one of the few natural beauties I have ever
seen. She has one of those faces that the longer you stare at her,
the more striking she becomes.
There were a few full-length pictures of the two
women, so I was able to contrast and compare the dainty blond
Janey, to the tall, dark-haired Teresa. Bas tells me she’s
five-foot-ten, the perfect height for my six-foot-five frame.
Teresa isn’t skinny like a fashion model, although she’s certainly
beautiful enough to be one. She has curves, but not the over-blown
ones like Janey. Teresa is elegant. Statuesque.
God, I even like her name. In the privacy of my room,
I sometimes lay in my bunk and whisper it aloud. Making it real.
Teresa. Teresa March. Teresa… Preston. Crap! The first time I said
that, I freaked myself out. Thirty-eight years old and mooning over
a girl. Damn, if I had a spiral notebook, I’d probably be penciling
hearts framing her name. With fucking arrows running through them,
because this was the woman Bas thought he was going to marry.
Bas, my best friend, whose goal in life was to sleep
this way through every woman he met until he finally caught Teresa
March. Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this? Crap,
Bastian told me the last time he saw Teresa, she had caught him in
his parents’ kitchen, sticking his dick in an ex-girlfriend. The
bastard even told me he was on leave and had fully intended to bed
the elusive Ms. March, but was side-tracked during his morning run.
The dog! I couldn’t understand how Bas could profess to love one
woman, but feel it was okay to sleep with a bunch of others. His
reputation was legendary, as was the size of his dick. I hadn’t
even met her, and I found I couldn’t stir up any interest in
another woman. So I definitely couldn’t understand how Bas, who
knew her, could even look at anyone else. I love Bas like a
brother, but he’s a player. Maybe one day he’ll see a woman, and
she’ll bring him to his knees, but I don’t think he loves Teresa. I
think he’s fixated on the one that got away. Once he nailed her, I
was pretty confident he would soon be looking for the next
conquest. Oh, maybe not right away, but I didn’t have much
confidence in his staying power.”
Over the next few years, I learned of every scraped
knee, prom date, and teenage trauma of the two girls in those
sixteen pictures – as well as the dozens that followed. I learned
about Janey’s fairy princess bedroom set with the pink canopy beds,
and gold-trimmed white furniture. I heard about Teresa’s
off-the-chart IQ that seemed to intimidate the foster parents who
adopted her when she was four years old. Bas told me about Janey’s
love of German shepherds, and Teresa’s essay on Germany. Janey’s
love of being photographed, and Teresa’s love of being behind the
camera. For every story about his sister, Bas told me one about his
sister’s best friend. I slowly started to build a file in my head
about all things Teresa. I was friggin’ smitten. What a loser.
Recently, Bas and I started talking about life after
the Navy. I’d already put in twenty years, while Bas has nineteen.
We are looking at May 31
st
to catch a flight home. I’m a
computer guy; I’ve gained a rep for developing a few software
programs which I’ve sold to the military for a healthy sum. Once
the military owned the program, I trained end-users and refined the
specifications to meet current mission needs. Bas was assigned to
my unit a couple years ago as an end-user who took my designs out
into real-life situations (aka: war zones). His feedback and ideas
helped me develop a better software design for topographical
mapping. We were a great team, and we wanted to continue working
together in the private sector. Ha! Private Sector. Civilians. What
a joke; we’d still be working with the military, only we’d be paid
obscene amounts of money for essentially doing the same jobs. We
were going to be partners. Partners probably pursuing the same
woman if I couldn’t get a handle on this obsession I'd
developed.
Obsession. Fixation. Lust. God, it was all tied into
what I felt for her. I may not have been interested in another
woman this past year or two, but that didn’t mean I didn’t
fantasize. And, damn, did I have a stellar love life with an
eight-and-a-half-by-eleven inch photo and my right fist. I felt
like a sixteen-year-old, the first time I jacked off to the picture
I had printed out. I remember standing there in the shower with my
palm holding the photo pressed against the tile, as I gripped my
cock in the other hand and stroked myself to one of the most
intense orgasms I had ever experienced. The picture was completely
destroyed in the steam and the sweat of my hand, but I was able to
reprint another to replace it. And another a few weeks later.
The very next morning, I had woken up with a hard
cock and her name on my lips. And thus marked the beginning of the
illicit affair with my palm and my best friend’s prospective future
wife. Each night I made love to her in my dreams, and every morning
I groaned her name as I ejaculated over my hand. I dreamed of her
laughing eyes, and her generous mouth. I fantasized of tasting her
skin, and smelling the fragrance of this woman and her sex on my
sheets. I started to fall in love.
It took me two nights at the bar to realize I was
ruined for other women. I’m a decent looking guy, even standing
next to Bas, who attracts more than his fair share of attention, I
rarely left the bar alone. Oh, the women are still interested, and
I enjoy their company over beer and burgers, but not in bed. In
bed, I’m only interested in one woman. I’ve always been a
one-woman-man, never a player.
So, I wait. I’ve been celibate since the first day I
saw her picture, because, that’s just the kind of guy I am.
Faithful, even if the woman doesn’t even know me to appreciate my
loyalty. It’s a couple days before Halloween, and that will mark
seven months until we are stateside. Finally out of this arid,
mountainous hellhole where we have been refining the accuracy of
the drones we use for the topographical mapping.
I can’t wait to see her. To hear the sound of her
voice and watch a smile light her face. Bas is stiff competition,
and there’s a history they share already. But, I don’t think it's
love. I don’t think what Bas feels is enduring. I’ll know when I
see them together. If it’s obsession and not love? Well, then
Bastian will have some competition in the Siege of Teresa
March.
I didn’t always love her, but sometimes, times like
now, I look up and see her head thrown back with laughter dancing
in her eyes, and I think I’ve loved her forever.
Her name is Teresa March. She’s my sister’s best
friend and I’ve known her since Janey brought her home one
afternoon after kindergarten. They met the first day of school, and
became Best Friends Forever over crayons and coloring books. It was
an unlikely match-up: my sister the girly-girl who always wore pink
and anything with frills or sparkles, and Teresa, who dressed like
a tomboy in jeans and t-shirts. Janey was always dragging her
around, like a large, life-size doll. Oh, this didn’t mean that
Teresa was a pushover, because I’ll tell you right now, I’ve never
met anyone as strong or as strong-willed as that dark-haired little
girl with the flashing eyes and the stubborn chin. Teresa was
content to let Janey be the social director of the duo; but, when
Teresa wanted something, it was a thing of beauty to watch that
little five-year-old work the manipulation to get Janey pointed in
the direction she wanted to go.
Teresa had been a constant visitor to our house for
almost ten years, but one afternoon I looked up and saw her. Not
Janey's best friend since kindergarten. Not the tall, gawky kid
that came over every weekend 'cuz her adoptive parents had better
things to do then raise their brainiac daughter. I mean, I
really
saw her. I saw the potential her and me. The
potential of an
Us
.
For the first time, I noticed the long dark hair that
fell in a straight, sable curtain to brush the upper curve of a
gorgeous ass. High and tight, maybe more rounded than current
fashion dictates, but ask any guy what a nice ass looks like, and
they’ll be picturing one that fits snugly into the curled grip of
their hands. I have large hands.
Teresa has deep-set, chocolate-colored eyes. Dark
chocolate, with long, thick lashes and black brows that curve in
high arches with finely tapered ends. And then there’s her mouth. A
sarcastic mouth that tilts up at one corner just before it becomes
a full-blown smile. And from one minute to the next, I suddenly
wanted that mouth in places I'm sure that mouth had never been
before.
Damn, she was only fifteen. Fif-fuckin’-teen. And I
had just turned twenty-three the week before. I was home on leave
from the Navy, considering if I was going to extend my service or
just get out when my remaining eight months was up. It was at my
birthday party that I had the epiphany, this girl could be ‘the
one’. That thought, right on the heels of the words ‘statutory
rape,’ scared the hell out of me.
Even as a twenty-three year old, I was what you could
consider sexually experienced. After nine years of fucking, I would
go so far as to admit I had some pretty sophisticated tastes. I’m
somewhat blessed in the looks department- go ahead, call it vanity,
but fuck, I’ve looked at this face in the mirror every day and I
know I meet, and in many women’s opinion, exceed, the standard for
male good looks. If my sister Janey is your classic Barbie doll
look-alike, I’m your classic Ken… well, except for the fact I am
anatomically correct. I have dirty blond hair, a set of pale green
eyes, with the high, defined cheekbones and manly jaw-thing goin’
on. Women seem to think my mouth is sexy, I think it looks a bit
full and maybe too wide. I’m a tall guy, six-foot-three by the time
I was sixteen. Add all the weight training I’ve been doing for
years, and you have a fairly nice package: wide shoulders, layered
muscles, and abs so well defined and rock-hard even men stopped to
stare at me when I took my shirt off in the gym. Yeah,
that
was a bit disconcerting the first few times I noticed it
happening.