King of Hearts Part 2

"Ring, ring, ring," she pleaded staring in the mirror, thoughts running wildly. All she could do was wait.
"What are you going do if he didn't make it? You won't cry, you'll get in the car and go home and know the chance to see him was worth it. Be positive, you look great, calm down, just calm down."
Finally, much later than planned, the phone rang, "You made it, your here, great I'm on my way to the base. I can't believe it you're really hear, bye."
"Okay, you said here, where are you?, Okay where are you?, I'm here Ethan, where are you?"

From a pair of double glass doors Captain Ethan C. Flanigan of the Blue Lightening squadron of the US Air Force casually walked toward the car. His striking uniform, tailored perfectly to fit his 6 ft frame, rebuffed the wind. A cocky Air Force hat sat perfectly, just left of center, concealing beautiful, wavy, dark hair. He was of Black Irish ancestry. Alanna contributed his dark chocolate eyes, high cheekbones and strong rugged jaw to his kinfolk, but she had no clue if they were truly Irish traits of just a lucky genetic combination.
He always sported mirrored ray bans and a bright, arrogant smile that literally flushed her body just to think of.
"Oh God it's him," She felt as if she was going to explode, yet she suddenly felt quite shy and awkward. The door opened and he got in.
"Hi, lets get off the base."
There was no opportunity for wild embraces or passionate kisses. He touched her hand, they smiled. Soon they would be together alone.
He placed the do not disturb sign outside the door of the room. A moment of awkward silence was followed by a slow, strong embrace. Alanna's legs shook beneath her, "My god your shaking all over, calm down it's just me, relax okay."
"I'm trying but Ethan, I've been literally dreaming of this moment for." Her rambling ceased. Without hesitation he took her face in his hands and kissed her sweetly. Her entire body quivered in his embrace. How could she have forgotten the grace which led his every move. The moment they had longed for was upon them. She found herself swimming, dizzy, almost faint as he pressed his mouth hard against hers with the force of months of restrained passion. The longing they both harbored unleashed itself like a storm. Hot breath, gasps for air, and trembling lips, fell and swam together. Their eyes met and they laughed as it slowly became real to them that they were actually together again.
How tender and precise he made love to her. She could sense he had an offering for her; something that would pull and purge her sexuality to it's outer limits. There were no limits when making love to this man. He crafted longing in her, her thighs, stomach, hips, pressed into him and plead for more.
Her passion roared from within and he controlled it's ferocity with the grace and skill of the best of tamers. Silently he conducted a symphony of passion.
Easing behind her, as she lay vulnerable to his every whim, his body lunged above her soft back. Feeling him reach the top of her, she pushed against him; hair strewn across the pillows, hands pressed deep into the mattress, she gasped with each forceful smooth motion he made behind her.
"It belongs here doesn't it Alanna? It fits too well, this is where it belongs isn't it?" he coaxed her.
"Yes Ethan," she gasped. "It does, you do," she whispered soft into the pillow. Even then lost in the moment she knew his words were desperately unfair to her.
He laid the full weight of his body upon her back and wrapped his arms around her. She felt his hands slid under her breasts, as he spoke softly into her hair.
"You know I would do this to you every night. Every night I would pull you from your studies, make love to you like this, release all your tension, just like this, if I only could."
His words evoked a fierce passion within her, however she could cling to the words, like the body of the man she knew she could never posses, only for the moment. She suddenly felt vulnerable laying prostrate beneath his heavy body, the sight of their bodies in the mirror, the soon disbursed such thoughts.
A long tan torso massaging hers. Strong buttocks effortlessly powering the movement; a well greased machine separate from the man himself. Hot breath permeated the back of her neck. She felt his heart beating slow and hard against her spine -- a low distant war-drum keeping a rhythm and pacing the time before the sudden attack. Overwhelmed senses.
Wildly, flinging herself over, she pulled him into her, and wrapping her legs tightly around his waist, she was ready. He steadied himself against her and a swirling intense warmth washed over her body. She clung to him, small cries escaped with each breath and she pulled him closer and closer as pleasure poured upon her. No man had ever encompassed her body so well.
Gasping for breath, tears filled her eyes and ran down her cheeks and she laughed and cried in unison. Her love for him was bitter-sweet and the passion between them intense. Laying silently under the weight of his body, she questioned if she could ever make love of that kind with any other man.
Sight, smell, taste all remembered, reexperienced, relived. They spoke with familiar voices, yet gazed upon each other with renew eyes, recalling small forgotten features, memorizing so as not to forget again. Words prepared to say were lost to the moment.
They lay still, allowing their bodies to melt away. Alanna loved the relaxed silence that came afterward. For the moment she could lay with him in her arms, feel soft breath on her breasts, close hers eyes, and believe briefly that he was hers.
He rose from her and leaned by her side. He smiled sadly tracing the curvature of her soft round pelvis. "How I love touching your sweet body," he whispered brushing the small mound of moist hair rising up to meet his fingers.
"What a lucky man, the man who someday gets to keep you. How incredibly passionate you are, and you know your not even aware of it are you?"
His words stabbed the soft silence. She heard little of what he said. When he spoke such words to her it was almost too much for her to bear. Although she claimed a secret place in his heart, what she had never satisfied her longing for more.
As he spoke, she had been concerned with another matter, and only heard the words 'not even aware of it are you'.
"I'm aware of that scratch down your side Ethan, and I'm so sorry, I swear I didn't mean to ..."
"Don't worry about that," he interrupted. "You didn't do it."
Relieved at first, then mortified, the glow in her body turned to ashes, and for a moment she hated him. She hated what they had created together. No matter how they tried to escape the truth, it haunted their moments like a dark shadow that sprung on any small light that dared to shine between them.
"I'm stepping into the shower now, okay."
"Sure, want company?"
"Well, we really don't have time, I want to make sure we'll have time to talk before I have to go."
"Oh, okay, but you know I want to shower with you someday, don't you?."
"Yeah, I know and you will, if your good," he joked.

She knew why he showered. She also knew that she wouldn't bathe that evening and perhaps not the following morning. She wanted to keep the smell of him lingering on her body as long as possible.
Black combats boots stood sternly against the wall, she put them on, and marched naked around the room. Where had these boots been? Where were they going? She wished that by putting them on she could see his life, feel what it was to be that man. That strange, strong, pathetic creature that filled those boots. She considered waiting for him to come out and see her prancing about in the clunky boots five sizes too large, but she held back, took them off and set them aside. She knew, looking at her silly appearance in the mirror, that just like the man who wore them, those boots were never to fit her.
She reluctantly sat herself across the room, so as to look upon him at a distance. She thought of how he encouraged her in her aspirations. His faith in her made her invincible. Nothing was impossible with him in her world. Ethan did have great faith in her. Although he saw her as young and free, full of life and naive spirit, he also held great confidence in her, and trusted her explicitly.

Ethan admired her spunky, fearless nature. She seemed to take life as it came, with a sort of blind courage. He knew the future she was up against and he was concerned for the unavoidable time her reality and his would collide. Like her father, he knew she would pull herself up and away from her small world. She somehow reminded him of himself.
Ethan had already attained his youthful aspirations, yet he was quickly realizing that what he wanted and what he wished for were two very different things. Two things as juxtaposed as the bright sky he flew upon and the core of liquid nickel and iron the solid ground beneath him revolved upon.
As he stepped from the shower and began to dress, she watched in silence and prepared herself to patiently listen and offer advice on how he could best find his own happiness, with or without her.


Pulling onto the base, knots grew in her center yet she remained calm. She parked just across from the landing strip. From there she could see the proud silver A10's that had first won her heart in the skies over Dayton.
"What a perfect setting for good-bye this is, looks like some scene from Top Gun," she thought.
Cutting off the engine, she turned her attention to the nervous, anxious, suffering man beside her. His astute composure, although the trademark of a true Pilot, could not hide the strained emotion sifting through his sullen gaze.
Scanning the base for unwanted eyes, he whispered "You know I can't kiss you good-bye here?"
"Yes of course I know that, you don't have to explain those things to me anymore," she responded irritated to be reminded of the situation she wished to pretend did not exist.
She somehow thought there should be more to say, something important, something that would last. She turned to him hoping he would say anything she could take home in her heart. He looked hard at her as though engraving an image in his mind to carry him for the rest of his life, it was scary.
"My how beautiful you are, it amazes me Alanna that I can forget how incredibly beautiful you are, you are my treasure, you take care of yourself, be strong, remember what your goals are, and remember I'm always thinking of you."
He held her hand so tight she believed for a moment he wouldn't let go.
"I will Ethan, thank you, I'll be waiting to hear from you," and his hand slipped away.
He knew he couldn't tell her when or even if they would see each other again and he knew as well that against all her hopes and dreams she did her best to come to terms with it all.
On that breezy November afternoon, he looked forward, slid on his Ray Bans, positioned his hat, and the Captain stepped out of the car. The base was scattered with privates and personnel and he walked like a ghost among them.
"He won't look back, I know he won't."
Holding back tears she checked herself in the mirror and forced a smile, "You better get hold of yourself Alanna, you promised yourself you wouldn't lose it."
As the Captain continued his ghostly retreat through the Autumn leaves, the tall trees bowed down and sprinkled sunlight over his shoulders, and Alanna couldn't stop the same questions from returning.
"Is this it Ethan? Are you walking away from me and out of my life for good this time? Will I see you again or is this the final good-bye?"
At last a tear escaped. It left it's path across the bridge of her nose and traveled down the crevice of her smile; yet her gaze remained on the figure of the man crossing the lawn. Then without a moment's notice, in the most nonchalant manner, he turned his head, revealed the profile of his strong jaw, and brought his hand to his brow.
"A Captain's good-bye, good-bye my love, my friend, till next time," she whispered softly and drove off the base.
Just three hours before it had been five months since she had seen him, three hours later he was gone again.
She cut up onto the highway, fumbled for a cigarette and turned on the radio, "no CD's can't handle any more grief." Yet one of their songs played anyway, "I got a hand for you," blared over the radio. She noticed a van in front of her. A covered tire sat on the back "Flanigan" she read the cover. She would have to remember to tell him about these coincidences: their song, the Flanigan on the back of the van.
Alanna was a true believer in coincidences. She read a book once that explained that coincidences weren't really coincidences but occurred for reasons; like cues for one to pay attention to as guides throughout one's life. She had tried to wax this philosophy on Ethan, but he was only humored by her naive belief in fate and circumstance.
She firmly believed that had she not met Ethan in the gym that April afternoon, she never would have made a trip to Austin to see him fly, and never would have ended up in Austin attending one of the best universities in the US.
She first saw the university, just two weeks after they had met. She flew to Austin for one of his flight shows. They had walked across the university campus, his alma matter.
"Oh it's so beautiful here Ethan. I'd love to attend a school like this?"
"So why not?"
"You know Ethan I'd love to, but my dad is so sick and my parents need me. I can't imagine my daughter and I picking up and going all on our own."
"You did it once before didn't you when you left your husband? I have no doubt you could do it again.
"I guess, but it would be a really big change."
"Alanna you'll never succeed in anything until you learn to see change as a good thing. It's a fact of life."
"I know Ethan."
"Your taking out loans, your a brilliant girl. This is where you should be, just think about it okay?"
"Okay, I will, I mean. I could, nothing's impossible right."
"Not once you set your mind to it. You know your parents want the best for you." (put lunch at Vinney's, trips abroad, wine, trip to cemetery in here)
She had listened to him that day. She loved that he had such faith in her. Eventually she took his advice and spoke with her parents. Less than six months later she was enrolled and living in Austin.
Her mind had again wandered away from the road and back to him. She tried unsuccessfully to force herself not to think of him, yet he continually invaded her thoughts. She encouraged herself to be strong and be happy, yet she knew it was a pointless endeavor. Her body still smelled like the man she shouldn't love, like the sex she shouldn't have had. Every song was sent from the grave, to shoot into her soul and pierce her heart, aimed by herself, yet shot unknowingly, unwillingly, by her knight in shining armor, or at least the incantation thereof.
For months to follow phone calls remained but became fewer and father between. The few they did share were shorter and less promising. Ethan sounded distant and miserable when he called and any attempt Alanna made to spice up the conversation was always clipped short with, "Now Alanna we don't want to go there tonight young lady." But she missed the steamy, erotic talks, which usually began with a call around midnight and which always lasted deep into the night.
Ethan spoke with a deep, calm, seductive voice often tempered with a bit of bourbon.
"I miss you immensely you know that, do you know what I'd be doing now if I was there beside you, I would take hold of that beautiful bottom of yours and pull you to me and kiss your hair as it fell down your milky back and ...."
Alanna missed those nights alone in her bed with his sweet voice guiding her through her fantasies. He had not offered her those nights since she had last watched him walk across the base that breezy November afternoon.

( put months of unsuccessful dating, father's death, wanting to share how she was settling into school, feeling cheated that she had come to Austin under his guidance but not having him to talk to when things were hard for her.)

It was January and they were together again. It had luckily happened that he was traveling through Texas over her birthday. She flew to Dallas and from there she rode with him on the trip for three days.
He warned her that the trip wasn't going to be like a vacation because he had to get to a base in another state but they agreed the time together was all that mattered and they met January 3rd to begin the trip.
Alanna was once again in the company of her estranged lover, emerged in yet another of the stirring conversations which Alanna loved so much about their time together.
In the last of the many Italian restaurants they would visit, she ordered a bottle of Chianti. She hoped he would notice that she remembered that they drank Chianti their first weekend together.

. The waitress came with the Chianti yet Ethan was lost in thought. As the waitress poured the wine, Alanna watched him gazing out the window to the wet parking lot. His eyes were sad and distant and Alanna sensed that the last course of their many past indulgences was being served this January evening.
"Should I order linguine? she asked teasingly, "I promise not to eat it all." Gazing through the window to the wet night, Ethan's eyes brightened and he smiled remembering the last time they shared the dish.

Alanna's lips met the rim of the glass and she sipped and watched his silence. The wine warmed her mind and she was soon lost in her own memories of that special weekend.

That night she suggested they play a few games of pool. Soon they were at Cocomoes and Alanna was winning, she thought. Oddly she hadn't considered Ethan anything other than an interesting, good looking man with whom she was enjoying a fun filled weekend, nothing more.
Months later she wondered why she had not asked or even questioned what was next or if she would see him again. Some thing had told her not to expect anything but a good time. However she knew she had to ask the question. So in the car on the way to the pool room she did.
"So are you guys married?" she asked casually. "To each other? No Ethan won't commit," Mike joked.
"No really, are you? she continued.
"Who Me?" said Ethan.
"Yeah you," she persisted.
"Oh which one," Mike quipped in, "Ethan's got four wives, your number five."
"Really, well five is my lucky number," she joked back giving up on the question.
The question was answered, however Alanna had just not been playing the games long enough to catch the most subtle nuances of conversations, and interpret answers to questions that when asked are left unanswered. She had since learned.
Her thoughts turned to the evening at hand and the phone call before they left the hotel room.
"I'm stepping into the bath, want to come along?" she asked. "No I've got to make a call, I'm uh, calling Sara okay so you know don't say anything and shut the door okay."
Okay , she said shutting the door behind her. Why's he like that? What the hell does he say to her anyway? If she really knew. If I were her, I'd ask what he was planning to do and I'd wonder why he didn't want to talk. Well she probably knows anyway. She's probably just given up trying. She turned the water off and listened to the low mumbles swimming under the door.
"Yeah me too, okay I will. I'll call you tomorrow." He hung up and exhaled. He glanced at the door, "I'm off," he hollered . At least she turned the water off and stayed quiet.
Alanna had hoped he would come in and stand in the doorway smiling at her like he did at the apartment in Austin, but he was obviously in a different place.

The waitress left the table and Ethan proposed a toast. "Together again," he said with an anguished smile. This evening, seven months since they first met, no linguine was ordered, and Alanna's intuition had sharpened, as well as had their conversations.
Although they managed to keep the conversation light and comfortable throughout dinner, half way through the second bottle of Chianti and long past the "if we were together we would or the we could conversations," her stomach again began to wrench. She had watched him across the candlelit table all evening and rather than be ecstatic that he was there with her it only hurt her to know that next week he would be gone again.
She wanted him. With every piece of her being. She wanted him for herself, for her life, forever. Holding back tears her eyes had burned throughout dinner and she forced bites of food past the knot in her throat by washing them down with plenty of wine. Ethan saw the tears and felt the tension. Finally he gave in.
"You know we always knew the time would come, I can't live my life like this forever."
Ethan was choosing his words carefully. He stopped and looked directly at her.
"Are you ready...for...for this?"
He searched Alanna's eyes for an answer. She was shocked at how cold they had become. She turned her face away from his gaze and concentrated on the small raindrops trailing down the window pain, the yellow street lights reflecting in the rain. She wished she could be as cool and disconnected from life, she wanted desperately to disconnect from what she was hearing. She would never forget those little yellow tears running down and away.
His finger curled beneath her chin and he turned her face to his.
"I just have to let you know, I'm really close to committing myself to something."
Comforting her for what was to come, he emptied the last of the second bottle of wine, then reaching across the table he took her hand in his.
"All this lying and sneaking... I just have to make a decision and stick to it."
She gathered her energy. "Why does he look so composed. How can he seem so certain?" she thought. She spoke, yet her words betrayed her emotion.
"I have always known that it would come to this one day Ethan, and I've always told you that in the end you'd make the right choice and I would support you in that. I will always be your dearest friend no matter what. This is your life. My only advice has been to tell you that you have to look back on life when your eighty and have no regrets and as little guilt as possible. I just want you to be happy."
She spoke diligently, and tried to disconnect the passion which she felt for him as she spoke. However she had suddenly found herself emerged in "the conversation" the one she had denied would ever exist. She was trying her best to be strong and not show her pain.
"What scares me though is that you will forego your own happiness to do the "right thing."
"So what's the right thing Alanna?"
"I believe the right thing is whatever is ultimately fulfilling to you Ethan. You'll do everyone else a big disjustice if you live a lie to make others happy. Because ultimately, if they ever knew or guessed the truth, they would realize that you've made a lie of their own lives, and of their own hopes and dreams."
She knew even as she spoke that it was her life and her dreams which would meet the scalpel she was so diligently helping Ethan to sharpen.
She watched him as she spoke, the conversation and tone of the evening was wearing him out. He didn't want or need anymore lectures. He had hoped to spend one last fun, light-hearted weekend together. Although in the past Alanna made a fine art of fulfilling his every desire, tonight she was having a hard time filling that request.
She carried on, rambling.
"Everyone deserves to know, recognize and live in a world of truth. Yet you cheat them from having the life and love they deserve if you aren't honest. I would never settle to be with someone if I knew they weren't in it with me one hundred percent."
There, her lecture was over and she felt better.
"Oh really, so what are you doing now, here with me," he countered.
"Touché,... learning the hard way I suppose and dreaming too much. But you see," she started up again,
"I know we're not an item, a pair, or anything even close to that, we're simply two people who just clicked, like two lost jigsaw puzzle pieces. We may never be in the big picture together, cause not all the pieces can be found or put together, but our being so connected is for some purpose larger than you or I, some bigger picture."
"I wish I could see it. I wish I could just see any thing that resembled a big picture."
"Ethan you do. We help each other see the truth. Your truthful with me. You let me know where you stand, how you feel, and what you believe. You'll eventually be ready to face the big picture and address the truth with Sara. Until then however she's living a nightmare until you wake her up and let her know what your feeling."
"I've tried, you know that, she denies it's all really so bad, she doesn't want to wake up, 'and neither do you,' he thought."
"Of course not, she's scared as hell of losing you, your everything to her. However the big thing here is that, although she's so afraid of the loss, she insists on not acknowledging there's a problem. That shows that she's not that concerned for your feelings. So where does that leave you?"
"Here." he answered, "So how'd you get so smart anyway?"
He hadn't said it. But his point was made, and a sad reality was setting upon the evening like a gray fog rolling in from the ocean, covering all in its path with a heavy wet blanket.
"This is about good-bye, isn't it Ethan," she asked gravely, consciously turning her eyes away from his."
"Some birthday to remember, huh?"
His answer, like always, was indirect. Even in the most serious moments, he was the master of avoidance behavior and this especially bothered her. It was if he wanted her to always leave a little light on, just in case some evening he couldn't find his way home and needed her there.
A wave of anger, resentment and betrayal flooded her senses. Excusing herself, she calmly walked to the bathroom to register the devastating turn the evening had somehow taken.
She wanted to scream and cry and leave him at once, yet she forced herself to remain calm. They still had one evening left together. She wanted it to be over and she didn't know how she would get through it.
( While in the rest room she thinks of him looking out the window the evening in the hotel room. She knew looking into the rest room mirror that she could never make love to him again, yet she also knew she would definitely screw him that night.)
She returned to the table composed, although red eyes revealed her tears. She smiled at him and he believed she had accepted his wish to set all aside and make the best of what time remained. Yet each time she looked at him her heart ached. He was so handsome she couldn't stand to look at him knowing he wouldn't see her again. He never guessed that through her sweet facade she furiously cussed him .
"I will fuck you tonight like you have fucked with my life you bastard... How can you sit there smiling at me you arrogant fool? ... I hate you for letting this happen."
Envisioning horns protruding from his forehead her thoughts took an even darker turn.
"There have some horns you horny freak!"
"I hope you burn in hell you adulterer. You may be handsome but you made a whore of me and I hate you for it!"
He spoke of his experiences abroad and how he had wished to show her the world, to watch her learn and grow and explore life.
Alanna's composure remained intact as she pretended to listen to his empty regret's and although she would have denied it that night, her anger had vanished by morning.
The sun came upon them too soon and she turned and watched him sleeping. Crying silently she thought of what a sad, lonely, lost creatures they both were. She pitied the man. He never meant to hurt her, he was as blind as she was. She thought of the night before, she didn't hate him. She knew it couldn't last. She wanted to hate him though, it would make saying good-bye so much easier, but she just couldn't. She loved the tormented man all too much.

They never really understood the words in the song which sang "the color of his knuckles." Today she understood as she watched his strong hand vibrating on the gear shift. It was the first sunny day since he picked her up at the airport, before that it had constantly rained and even snowed once, very cold.
"Now the sun comes out, on the day I'm leaving," she had mused getting into the jeep.
"Perhaps it's a sign Alanna, that everything is going to be okay."
"Yeah right, I don't think so Ethan good try."
"Oh so I see only a coincidence when it fits Alanna's scheme of things. I see how it is."
She had run out of things to say, all she could do was watch his hands and concentrate on the color of his knuckles, the way the little dark hairs curled on top of his fingers, the way he had touched her with them, how wonderful it was to be in his presence. She concentrated on and memorized the moment.
They stood in the airport, everything seemed to be in slow motion, yet happening too fast. This was it, the final good bye, no question to that, and no questions left to ask. She wanted to hold him, to take a moment and smell him, one last long look into those beautiful dark eyes, but there was no time. Or was there? Perhaps there was plenty of time for a long, sad good-bye, yet they both knew that the entire trip seemed to have been one long sad good-bye and they both just couldn't or wouldn't make it last any longer.
Yet she watched as always, the beaming sun behind the figure of the man leaving. She watched through the glass doors of the airport, as Ethan, the lover, the dream, stepped fast around the front of the red jeep, leather jacket thrown in the back, profile, Raybans. Good-bye, motoring running, no time, no more, no more time, and she stood alone, left with the reflection of herself against the glass.
"Happy Birthday" she thought staring at the image of herself. She felt her feet still standing strong under her and heard 26 years of life somehow reminding her that this pain too would eventually pass and be replaced as a sweet memory, eventually.
She turned and walked through the small, cold, silent airport. What few people were there noticed her. How could they not, she thought. Tears poured from her eyes and although she tried to conceal them, it was useless. She was doing good to stifle back sobs. She was at the end of the world and she just wanted to disappear. To wake up and realize the whole thing had been one horrid dream.
Yet she didn't know how to escape the vacuum that sucked at her soul. What had happened to the small moments they shared? Where had they gone? It felt as though all she had yesterday treasured, had vanished. Today there was no meaning, no future. They was nothing, yet that was all she had.
She cradled her Journal, it comforted her to know those moments were still living inside the gray binder she clung to. She opened it and began to write:
"How the hell am I supposed to just walk away. I knew better. I know I did. What the hell was I thinking? Oh to live in the moment wild and free, with no thoughts of yesterday or of tomorrow. Well how do you like this moment Alanna? Was it really worth it? Would you do it again? Hell no. But my god why do I love him. How will I ever feel this way for another. What have I done to myself? Why...?
She sat in the corner, across from a large window where she could see the small prop plane she was about to risk her life on, only to go back to what saw as no real life at all.
She never expected it to end at destination nowhere. She couldn't even remember what city she was in.
"I suppose this is what all those old movies were about, the airport scenes where the star-crossed couple part ways, the man leaves saying it's best and the leading lady has a spell. That's what I'm having a spell. A good old fashioned, discarded in the airport spell. That's all."
It hadn't actually been a lover's getaway like something from Casa Blanca. No, just three days on a highway, foggy nights in cheap hotel rooms, another Italian restaurant and a smoky dive where the no one would know their names.
She thought of the day she had spent walking the beach in front her parent's home. The wind was stiff and the surf was high, she was walking and thinking about the situation with Ethan, she knew she needed her father's advice. That evening she sat at the dinner table and attempted to explain her reasons for continuing to see the married, miserable man.
"Daddy relationships are always a gamble. Sometimes the stakes are higher than others. But you don't know what's in the cards till they've been dealt. I'm waiting for the last card to fall before I fold, and I'm betting all I've got."
"This Ethan though, Alanna, he's got an Ace in the hole no matter what. You realize that don't you?" He was grossly disappointed in her, but he wouldn't show it.
She loved her father intensely and believed and followed his advice to the letter. He saw how happy his little girl was, and he knew she was smart enough to know when it was time to fold.
"Trust your instincts honey, life's a gamble. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, cut your losses, and move on. I trust you know how to play the game."
"I crapped out Daddy," she said sighing softly, her head pressed against the airport window that fogged under her breath. She stared indignantly at the small plane that would take her home to reality. A reality in which no princes on horseback would sweep her away to live in castles in the sky. A reality in which she would have to find her happiness all on her own.
"It's really better that way, doing it all yourself, for yourself Alanna. That's what Ethan told you. That would make him happy. After all one has to be happy with their self and their own lives first before they can freely give of themselves without exploiting others, you know that."
The plane was ready to board, she rose to her feet. They were still under her standing strong and she stepped away, leaving behind nothing but the misty condensation of her heavy breath against the glass.
They spoke again some months later on the phone. A few "how's life been conversations" was all. Life was going well for her at last. It had taken several distraught weeks , but eventually she came to terms with the conclusion. She still ached a little inside when certain songs played on the radio, or when she passed "Vinney's Italian Cafe" but she learned a lot over one year of doing reality. She learned she had a lot more to learn. And finally she was excited about life.
After Ethan's divorce, a few small hopeful flames sparked in her breast. But he diligently extinguished them. She resigned herself to the fact that his glow, would always be a light, deep in the secret garden of her womanhood.
January 1997 - A new year - A year to the day since she found herself sitting in an airport waiting for a plane to take her back to her small world. Today she was leaving the city in the sand, Las Vegas, where she had spent an exciting New Year's Eve. Life had somehow worked itself out. She had helped it along. She opened her birthday present to herself, a beautiful black leather bound journal with vanilla pages.
"A new page, a new year, Happy Birthday you wonderful woman. We made it another year, you pulled me through. I think I can honestly say we're over Ethan. Although I did think of him here in Vegas. I recalled my talk with Daddy and the gambling analogy. Well I'm ready to write for the last time of that certain phase in my life and that particular roll of the dice:
It's all very erotic and exciting, the rituals involved in gambling, a kiss of the dice, an Ace in the hole, the climatic cheer as the roulette ball lands splendidly and you win. So exhilarating, dancing with lady luck, that once she hands you her rewards, losing bears little consequence, then the dance with the devil begins.
We hold. We wait out the next card. We watch how other's play their hands. We bluff. There are many ways to win, unfortunately however, as any seasoned gambler knows, there are many more ways to lose.
They called Ethan the King when he flew. She called him the Joker and folded.

So my dear friend, as this pen leaves this page, as I leave here today, I shut this door behind me, a new door opens and a new phase of life begins.
Love, Alanna Lawrence