2 Chapter 2

The plane turned at last, and in the short calm before acceleration, I could hear distant booms of the conflict between the two local factions that had rendered our presence as peacekeepers impossible.

The engines revved and we started to move forward at rapidly increasing speed. I closed my eyes, fingers gripping my armrests fiercely—and pictured in my mind that Marine’s reassuring smile, to help distract from my flying phobia. It helped. I began taking discrete glimpses of the man. Sitting in that seat, his long legs were displayed, I thought, to their best advantage. Even in his camo garb, the perfect proportions, the sensuous curves of the muscles pressing out against the fabric, were very evident.

That I was especially appreciative, suggested the idea that my fear and tension had actually increased my sexual response. Might that make a paper?I found myself thinking, and posed the idea, half as a joke, because imagining the details of such a study—I would, I decided, restrict subjects in the study to Marines—provided a welcome distraction to my persistent anxiety, which only increased as the plane lifted off.

When he leveled off, things became easier for me. We were out over open sea now, and the sight of the broad blue of the Pacific through the window was vastly reassuring—because we were now away from the conflict itself—and beautiful in a calming way.

We were away!I told myself. We had made it.

With sources of natural beauty on either side—the Pacific Ocean and the Marine, I began to relax at last. And eventually I drifted off.

* * * *

I awoke due to the plane encountering slight turbulence. I jerked awake, sitting bolt upright and not sure where I was. Then I remembered, and looked out the window.

Still the blue of the Pacific.

I sighed, and turned my head to look across the aisle. The big Marine was asleep, which allowed me to study him at my leisure—though I couldn’t see his face, which was turned away. Fortunately, his legs, chest and shoulder provided sufficient visual interest. And that powerful neck. He wasn’t, I decided, a heavily built individual. Rather, apart from being well-muscled, he was just plain large. Standing he must have been six-feet-six in his boots. Andhe just oozed quiet competence—which I found even more attractive.

I thought about the Marines I had interacted with during my time as part of expeditionary force. Before this I had met a certain number of men in the other branches of the military, but I had come to have a particular respect for Marines.

Again, Marines seemed to be more militaryin some way; they took their roles more seriously. And, to be blunt, they came across as being simply more virile. But it was more than that. Somehow, a Marine not in uniform was still definably a militaryman. I found that very attractive, and not in a predatory way (in the negative sense, at least), but rather as an observer, in an appreciativesense.

And if there’s one thing that a field psychologist enjoys, it’s to observe

Since my joining the expeditionary force, I made copious notes each day in shorthand, and transferred them to my personal laptop in the evenings. Well aware of the security factor that was always present in anything to do with the military, I was scrupulous to keep everything, so to speak, above the belt—professional, and discrete. Besides, it wasn’t anything classified that interested me. I was along to study how Marines coped with the sort of peacekeeping this action was

That, of course, didn’t mean that I didn’t have private fantasies now and then, or, rather, frequently. I just never expected anything to come of them.

During my first days as an embedded civilian, I received my fair share of casual teasing, which didn’t bother me. I understood the process. It was members of a closely connected group testing a newcomer, to see what he was made of, and whether they could trust or depend on him. (Being a professional psychologist doeshave its advantages—for psychology is the study of the behavior of the human animal.)

I was not, however, subjected to any actual nastiness; for all their rough and tough miens, Marines, I learned, had a bedrock principle of respect for anyone who passed their tests, which I found most welcome. They didn’t press too much about what I was doing there, but when they learned that I was a psychologist I was given the nickname, Doc.

I didn’t object. I mean, I didhave a PhD, but I knew that the “doc” they referred to was the medical connotation associated with psychologist. I never told them the difference, that while psychiatrists were actual medical doctors, psychologists were simply scientists. It didn’t seem important.

There was, unsurprisingly, the connotation of therapistassociated with a psychologist, for I did have some Marines come to me with their problems, on the quiet. I wasn’t a clinical psychologist, which is what professional therapists often are, but I did my best with them. I knew that the largest part of therapy is simply listening with an open mind and heart, and luckily, I had both.

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