Defecting Soldiers

They laid on her bed, wine glasses perched on the nightstand like two translucent birds on a particle board branch. The room still smelled like Italian food. Sinatra busied himself in the background. Edward & Allison had been on a handful of dates. And though she had broached the idea of being exclusive, he always seemed to find ways to skirt the issue. He coughed the usual let's-see-where-this-goes lines.

Sex for Edward was a game of Risk. It wasn't enough to sack Europe; one had to conquer the map. Poor Allison was a small middle-eastern country with little social currency. His men took what they wanted and burned the rest.

Yet on the bed they were, redundantly smiling back and forth like an absurd game of catch. She spoke and he leaned in, his ear held by a string she playfully tugged. They laughed often and deeply. He reached over to grab her breast, but the hand went rogue. Always his faithful servant, the hand--seemingly possessed-- missed its target. Ignoring Edward's directive, the hand proceeded northerly. Its destination unknown to anyone, the hand moved swiftly and with purpose. Rounding the shoulder, it surfaced just beneath the hairline of the neck.

Mutiny. Betrayal. Abandonment.

Before Edward knew it, the hand was stroking her hair. Pulling gently from the roots to the delicately conditioned tips, she let out the tiniest moan. This moan was altogether foreign to Edward. He'd made many women moan, but this had a different tenor. Her utterance was baptized of sexuality. It was a human pleasure of safety and comfort.

It would be six years later, on their wedding day, during the recitation of their vows that Edward would recall this instant as the moment he knew that he was in love. Allison had no memory of this event.