Page 79 of Down and Dirty

From: Captain Lenore Feldman

To: Commander Ian MacLean

Subject: WEALS

Whipped cream and other food products can be a form of forbidden sexual fraternization.

Chapter 14

Who hid the red paint?…

They had just completed the fourth week of WEALS training, and only thirty-five of the original ninety-five women remained. Fortunately, Britta and her three sleeping-chamber companions were still in the race.

Despite how hard they had been worked, from before dawn to dusk every day, and sometimes in the middle of the night, Britta felt good. And she was proud. Not just of the strength and stamina she was building in her body, but how much she was learning. How to use weapons, like rifles and KA-BAR knives. How to maneuver in close-quarter fighting. How to infiltrate an enemy’s territory. How to survive a nigh-drowning. How to work as a team, not an individual fighter. How to ride a rub-her boat on the waves without swallowing an ocean of salt water. How to jump off exceedingly high towers without breaking a limb, an exercise preparing them for jumping out of metal vehicles in the sky, something she chose not to think about.

Zachary, with his overconcern for her well-being, had approached her several times, trying to coax her into ringing out. Mostly, she just ignored the lout. Yea, they had enjoyed great bedsport, but now ’twas time to move on to more serious matters. Not that he didn’t still make her blood heat and her nether parts thrum when he was near, but any other passably fair man would probably affect her in the same way, and she had told Zachary so. Which had caused his pretty face to flush with anger. Now he was the one ignoring her, or trying to.

In the midst of her busy schedule, she was even learning reading, writing, geography, math, and history in classes arranged over her dinner hour each night. This instruction was provided for her privately, probably at Zachary’s urging, under the guise of her being a foreigner unfamiliar with the language and customs of America. The history lessons were the most illuminating to her; they drummed home more than anything else that she really must have traveled through time, as unbelievable as that was.

But now, it was Frey’s-day afternoon, and Britta and her fellow trainees were about to have their first free time in weeks. “At ease, snuffies,” the commander hollered. Everything he ever said to them was delivered in a holler. “Be back here by oh seven hundred Sunday morning. Clean, pressed uniforms. Be prepared to strut your stuff for the powers that be.” A contingent of far-famed governing people from a place called Con-grass was coming to inspect their progress. “And be prepared to start survival training and simulated combat exercises on San Clemente Island starting Monday. We’ll play some Sims. Get in a few tracking, patrolling, ambushing, concealment, first-aid, and night-movement exercises. That’s it. Fall out! Class secured for the day!” You would think he could at least have told them they did good so far, but nay, praise from him would be considered a weakness.

Two whole days. She sighed.

The first thing any of them wanted to do was shower away the day’s sweat and grime. By the time Britta was done, she smelled of apple hair, strawberry skin, and floral armpits. In other words, delicious. Once back in the sleeping quarters, all four women sank down on their cots, planning to rest for a short time afore going to a shopping mart, which they promised Britta would be a real treat. However, the women were dead to the world for a full five hours, only rising after their stomachs rumbled with hunger.

Except for Britta, to whom sleep these days meant horrific dreams taking her back to a time and place where sword dew was being spilled aplenty at the abbey… and the good nuns’ virtue was forfeit to every passing man. She could no longer think of the dreams as products of her imagination. They were peek holes into the past as it was happening. She was sure of it. Which meant she must return and help.

Or did it?

She would have to ask Hilda and Madrene the first chance she got. Both women had called several times on a magic box called a telephone during the past three sennights, inquiring about her well-being and progress in the WEALS.

When she rose from her cot, stretching with a wide, lusty yawn, she told her three chamber companions, “There is something important I must do afore I even think of eating or going off to a shopping mart.”

“What’s that, sweetie?” Terri asked while she towel-dried her short, curly hair.

“Bet she wants to call Pretty Boy and arrange a few more of those mind-blowing orgasms,” Donita teased.

“Nay, I do not. Zachary has been as cruel as the other sadistic instructors these past sennights. What I want—”

“I know, chère, you want a Brazil wax, yes?” Marie interjected, also teasing.

Britta had to laugh. She’d already become accustomed to this country’s female ritual of shaving the legs and underarms, but shaving her nether region held no appeal and, truth be told, made no sense. Besides, she would not wear a bikini in public under any circumstances. She’d rather go naked.

“I want to cut my hair,” she told them, combing her fingers through her waist-long hair, damp even after five hours.

“Oh, honey, I don’t know,” Terri said, running a hand over the wet swath. “You have beautiful hair, like gold silk.”

“I agree,” Donita said. “If I had hair like yours, I’d leave it the way it is.”

“What does Pretty Boy say ’bout ya cuttin’ yer locks?” Marie inquired.

That question surprised Britta. “Why would his opinion on my personal grooming matter a whit to me?” Oddly, it did matter, but that was neither here nor there. “My long hair is becoming a hindrance, even when in a braid. It catches on wood objects in the obstacle course. It is heavy and warm, causing me to perspire more. It takes too long to shampoo and dry.” And she felt different than the other women.

In the end, Britta sat before a full-length mirror Donita had inside her metal closet, and all three women, laughing and chattering away, began to cut her hair and dry it with a blowing apparatus.

“So, Marie, I saw you talking to that Cajun hunk,” Terri said, spreading a towel around Britta’s shoulders. “You two got somethin’ going?”

Marie shook her head. “I’ve had enough of Cajun men, growing up on the bayou. I would feel like I was getting it on with my brother. Talk about!”