Around four in the morning, I hear some creaking in the floor. Not the long, irritated groans of old floorboards like in my mom's house, but the short pops and squeaks made by whatever the floors are made of in the trailer. Anyway, I've heard Lucky come home enough times to know someone was lurking nearby. My body tingled from the adrenalin coursing through my veins. I was wide awake and fully prepared to act. My first assumption was that some meth fiend from the trailer park was poking around for cash or something to steal. I slid my hand into the partially opened drawer of my bedside table and wrapped my fingers around the Smith & Wesson inside. Just the sight of a pistol is usually enough to scare off a stoner.
I had just pulled the weapon under my pillow when I sensed the intruder enter my room. He took a few steps, and then paused for what seemed like hours but was surely only a few seconds. Before I could rise and surprise him, he surprised me by pouncing on the bed. I recognized his moves to overpower me since it was the same technique taught to all the newbies at the agency's training facility. It didn't take me long to slip out of his grasp and smack him upside the head with my pistol. Stephen was a pile on the floor when I turned on the light.
He told me this was just his way of ensuring that I was still in condition for the operation we are planning to take place on the 25th. "Had to make sure you hadn't gotten lazy after all these weeks of soft living," he told me. None of it rang true. He seemed genuinely shocked that I had overtaken him and his explanation seemed forced. I'm still not sure whether this guy is working for someone else or if he's just plain off his rocker. Whatever the case, he doesn't inspire much confidence in me regarding our upcoming sting.
Speaking of which, Stephen told me later in the week that he had settled on the scenario he felt would work best. Unfortunately, it involves recruiting some outside help. Our agency is built around utilizing civilians from various fields to supplement our meager manpower resources, but given the lack of lead time, we will need to find new people who have not been vetted by the agency. This is causing even more dread on my part. I want to call the whole thing off and handle it myself, but The Colonel is backing Stephen, so I have to go along. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
Meanwhile, I've been continuing my cover routine with other men besides Mr. Hommecornee. Not the most fun occupation when you're on your period (I won't even go into the sleight-of-hand required during this time of the month). My one highlight of the week was catching the Ravens-Jets game on Monday Night Football. I was getting so sick of all the hype surrounding Rex Ryan and his Jets this summer and how the national media totally bought into it. It's as if the NFL and the sports journalists want to orchestrate their own storylines like it's WWE wrestling. They have a handful of favorite teams and the rest are just supposed to stand around and get pounded by them like the witless henchmen on bad cop shows. Blustering Rex and pretty boy Sanchez were supposed to stomp all over the always hated Ravens, but the Ravens outplayed them the entire time. I was so thrilled, I almost spilled my diet root beer on my laptop!
Otherwise, I've been in a perpetual state of ennui (I haven't pulled that word out in awhile). My mom's been telling me how wonderful it's been spending time with Mr. Huggins (am I supposed to call him Brad now?). Then she asks about how Lucky and I are doing, and I dismissively say it's all good, but it isn't. The initial novelty of dating a performer in Vegas has worn off, and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm just staying with him for the free rent.
The other day, I was clearing out some of the songs that had piled up on my iTunes over the years and I wasn't listening to anymore. I came across Faith Hill's Breathe and I felt a stab in my gut. Memories of my senior year in high school flooded back, when I was reading too many romance novels and full of yearning for some passionate relationship. I know it sounds completely corny, but the feelings were nevertheless very real to a naive kid. Back then, I never had a boyfriend and only dated boys who were convenient; i.e., nonthreatening and possible gay. At night, I would lay in bed with Faith Hill's lyrics floating through my head, imagining that sense of reclining next to a man and feeling so completely comfortable and secure, totally enraptured by the moment of simply being together. I couldn't wait to find that man and have that feeling. My body fairly ached for that sensation.
In college, I had a steady boyfriend, and there were some passing flings during my time in the Navy. Now I have Lucky. Two nights ago, I laid next to him after a fairly perfunctory love making session and listened to him breathe, just like Faith Hill sang about. Only thing was, I felt nothing. He was a man laying next to me performing a necessary action for the perpetuation of his existence. Nothing more. I couldn't help but wonder, would I ever feel what Faith Hill felt?
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