dontravis.com
blog post #324
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TO MY READERS: The “Contact” section has been restored to my Web Site…
until it disappears again as mysteriously as the first time it vanished. At any
rate, I can now respond to comments. Thanks.
I appreciate
your indulgence over missing a posting deadline over
something as trivial as a car wreck and a little internal bleeding. The doctors
have arrested that, apparently. I’m feeling okay, but a bit washed out. Sore
from being shaken up in the auto wreck, as well.
At any rate,
here is the post for this week. One of those two-parter short stories. Hope you
enjoy.
*****
BIFURCATED MAN
Meeting Valdy, my future wife, during
intermission at the Metropolitan Opera was a fantastic, unexplainable,
gold-plated stroke of luck. Actually, I had been wandering the fringes of the
crowd keeping an eye on a handsome young stud who caught my attention. Although
I was at a loss to adequately explain it, I was occasionally attracted to some
hunk, inevitably an overt heterosexual. I merely speculated and never acted on
such impulses. One adorable young second lieutenant at Dix tempted me mightily,
but I had sense enough to keep some distance between us. As I stood pondering
my confusion in the foyer of the Metropolitan between acts of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffman, a stunning vision
in a simple, elegant gown of Egyptian linen floated up and handed me a drink,
bringing with her the soft aroma of lilacs.
“You look like a bourbon man. I’m
Valdessa Bannerman. Valdy for short.”
“Love it!” I lied gallantly. A
single malt Scotch was my drink. “Joseph Hunter.”
To make a long story short, five
months later, Valdy and I were married in the Fort Dix base chapel where I had
traded my banker’s three-piece suit for captain’s bars when I was called to
temporary duty. That handsome second lieutenant was my best man.
Valdy fit seamlessly into my life
when we came home to Albuquerque a deliriously happy golden couple; me, tall, blond,
and slender with manly lumps, and Valdy… Lord the curves she packed into that
svelte form! Her eyes were a pale blue that darkened when she was excited. Mine
were as green as the patina of a weathered cathedral dome.
I took immense pride in the
adoration Valdy inspired among my social set yet was feral enough to recognize
danger when it surfaced. And Rick Ailman was dangerous. Even so, the handsome,
personable builder of luxury homes was of interest to me as a banker. Five
minutes after they were introduced at the Mayor’s Charity Ball, he had Valdy on
the dance floor turning heads. Thereafter, it seemed that everywhere we went as
a couple, Ailman showed up to sweep Valdy into his hard-muscled arms on some
dance floor or the other. I held a tight rein on my temper but did a lot less
kibitzing and a lot more dancing at public functions.
“I do believe you’re jealous,” she
cooed once, a soft smile stretching those luscious lips.
“Nonsense!” I responded and felt a
flush on the nape of my neck.
Despite my denials, later, as I lay
panting and exhausted, I realized the truth of it. At the very moment of
climax, I held an unwelcome image in my mind of a naked, dark-haired Adonis in
bed with my wife… Rick Fucking Ailman!
Vice Presidents are trumped by
Executive Vice Presidents, and that is who assigned me the Ailman account.
Under such conditions, social encounters are impossible to avoid even though I
put things off as long as possible. Eventually, Rick took the initiative and
not only invited me to a working lunch, but also a round of golf afterwards.
Albuquerque’s persistent spring winds had abandoned us until next year, the
true heat of the season had not yet arrived, and the blue sky was blotted with
towering, snowy thunderheads far to the west, a perfect day for golf at a mile above
sea level.
As we waited for the green ahead of
us to clear, Rick parked the cart we shared in the shade of a cottonwood and stretched
one foot out on the grass. I dug dirt from my cleats with a tee.
“Glad to see you’re relaxing a
little,” he said out of the blue.
I looked at him in surprise. “I
thought I was a laid-back sort of guy.”
“You are… except around me. Your
defenses always go up when I’m around.”
Since there was no denying it, I
might as well get it out in the open. “Gotta admit that’s true. You set off my alarm
bells.”
“Why?”
I shrugged and equivocated. “I
don’t know. It’s just a personal reaction, I guess.”
I endured the study of his
sable-fringed brown eyes for a long moment before he gave a low chuckle. “It’s
your wife, isn’t it? You come on like gangbusters when I dance with her.”
“Look, drop it. I’m capable of
separating my personal and professional lives.”
His silence lasted thirty seconds;
his gaze made me uncomfortable. “You don’t get it, do you? Talk about babes in
wonderland. It’s not your wife I’m interested in… it’s you!”
I don’t know why I laughed aloud,
probably because I didn’t believe him. After a moment, he joined in. Then some
invisible power flipped a cosmic switch, and we sobered.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Dead serious. Look, I like women. Hell,
I love women, but occasionally I
swing from the other branch of the tree.”
“Not with me, you won’t!” I
blurted.
*****
Whoa,
what’s going on here? Talk about some cosmic power flipping switches, has Rick
Ailman found the key to Joseph Hunter. Next week will tell the tale.
Abaddon’s Locusts,
the
fifth in the BJ Vinson mystery series, came
out last month. The book received several positive reviews. I hope you’ll
consider buying a copy. If you do, please post a review of the book on Amazon.
Each one helps… as do letters to the publisher.
Now
my mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on
writing. You have something to say… so say it.
My
personal links:
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/donald.travis.982
Twitter:
@dontravis3
Buy
links to Abaddon’s Locusts:
See
you next week.
Don
New Posts are
published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.
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